by Silva Payne

Created on: September 20, 2009

While every special occasion calls for a smart pair of shoes, most women have at least one pair of casual shoes in their wardrobe. Often these will be trainers or sneakers, much loved and much worn not only for the gym but perhaps for driving in too before slipping into a pair of heels to exit the vehicle. Casual shoes can be the most difficult to buy, and are often the most difficult to part with.

Buying smart, extravagant or fancy shoes is usually an easy process. You are walking down the high street and your eye is caught by the most gorgeous shoes in the world sitting in a shop window. Transfixed, you turn in mid-stride and stand salivating in front of the window for a few moments, allowing the magnificence of the shoes to permeate your every pore. Then, paying only enough attention to the price tag to ensure you have enough credit to cover the purchase (food, utility bills, rent; none of these matter at this point), you enter the shop.

Tension mounts as you ask to try on that pair in your size, and you wait nervously as the assistant disappears to the stock room for what feels like an eternity. She returns, brandishing those shoes in her brazen way, and suddenly they are on your feet as you stand before the mirror. It doesn't matter that you can feel them pinching your toes (if you can feel your toes at all) or that the heels are so high you will tower by several inches above your boyfriend or husband. All that matters are the gorgeous shoes. Taking them off so that they can be boxed is agony, but you convince yourself that the pain is only because those shoes were made to be on your feet and not wrapped in tissue paper. You pay, you leave the shop, you start thinking of ways to justify to your significant other that the lack of rent money or a week's worth of beans on toast was worth it.

Casual shoes do not demand such attention. Casual shoes are the clothing equivalent of the pound puppies competing against the Kennel Club pedigrees in any dog show. There are just so many of them, everyone has them, they are nothing special. But really, finding a great pair of casual shoes is something every woman needs to do occasionally and often struggles with.

Smart shoes do not have to match any item of clothing in your current wardrobe; smart shoes can justify the purchase of a whole new outfit specifically to match them. Casual shoes have to look at least good, if not great, with every outfit you own. Casual shoes have to work so much harder for their place

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