Ferry to Conference Shoes

In "A Woman's Right to Shoes" (ABC Radio By Design, 29 September 2010) Christine Cremen discussed the trade-offs between comfort and fashion with footwear. The problem is not so severe for men, but as someone with flat feet, I have difficulty finding comfortable shoes which look acceptable. Particularly when travelling, I need shoes which can be used for walking but also going to a formal dinner. Christine Cremen talked of "car to bar" shoes, I need ferry to conference ones and think I have found them in the Ascent Apex.

The Ascent brand of shoes are sold by the Athletes Foot stores. These combine running shoe technology for comfort in more formal looking shoes for school children and adults.

Attending a large conference can be a painful experience. It can involve standing up most of the day chatting with delegates and walking between the exhibition hall and the conference area. Even if you can dress down during the day there is then the conference dinner to attend. The Ascent has the sole of a comfort walking shoe, with enough support for someone with flat feet and a plain black upper which is good enough to wear with a suit. This saves having to take two pairs of shoes to a conference. A bonus is that the reinforcing in the sole is made of plastic, rather than steel, making them able to go though airport metal detector.

My search for travel shoes has been a long one. On a trip to Greece my shoes fell apart and I ended up with a pair of Scholl Professionals from the local apothecary (chemist). These are black leather walking shoes have worked very well, but are not formal enough for wearing to dinner with a suit. The Ascent Geelong I purchased are similar to the Schools, looking a bit like a soccer boot, with long lace up section and top stitched from several pieces of leather. These are very comfortable and provide good support for flat feet, but are not "dressy" enough for formal occasions. The Ascent Apex has the same sole as the Geelong, but with a plainer upper. I worried it may not be as comfortable, not being as moulded to the foot and with less lacing, but they worked well for a week at WCC2010.

But these shoes are still not perfect, they have very little tread and so would not be good for climbing over slippery rocks, for example on a bush-walk or on wet marble at the acropolis. There is the Ascent Delta Safety Shoe which does have a tread, but they might look a little odd with a suit. The safety shoe has an oversize sole which looks like the dress shoe has been glued to a boot sole. But at least these soles are made entirely from plastic (with a fibreglass safety toe cap) so they are lighter than a typical boot and can be worn through an airport meta detector.

Comfortable Safety Boots

In "A perfect fit, except for the boots" (Jewel Topsfield, The Age, 10 April 2010) cabinetmaker Jayme-Lee Cooney complains about finding well fitting work boots. Yesterday I tried on the Ascent Alpha. This is very comfortable and relatively light despite having a standards compliant safety toe cap. This has simialr technology to the Ascent Geelong I am wearing and have found very comfortable. I actually went into the store to try the Ascent Delta Safety Shoe. The store had no stock of the shoes in my size so I tried the boot, which is like the same sole and toe cap as the shoe. One appealing feature is that fibreglass is sued for the toecap and plastic for the reinforcing and other parts which are normally steel. Apart from being lighter this means the footwear does not set off airport metal detectors.

Shoes for flat feet

Having Flat feet (pes planus or fallen arches), shoes are always a problem for me. On a trip to Greece my shoes fell apart and I ended up with a pair of Scholl Professionals from the local apothecary (chemist). These are black leather walking shoes have worked very well.

Recently my feet were hurting and the doctor prescribed a bottle of champagne: not to drink, but to fill with cold water and roll my foot around on. This sounded a bit complicated so I dropped into The Athletes Foot at Belconnen. For years I had been going past and seeing a display of shoes for people with foot problems. They measured my foot on the usual mechanical device and then used a computerised pressure sensor (which looked like a gimmick to me).

What I was after was a black leather shoe and they had three styles to choose from. The one I ended up with was the Ascent "Geelong Urban" (the same store also sells Scholl Orthahell). This appears to be an adult size of the running style school shoes they make for children. There is a hard plastic reinforcement in the sole under the arch of the foot. Apart from that, these shoes don't look anything special, but so far seem to work well, removing foot pain.

There is also an Ascent Delta Boot which looks interesting, this is a safety shoe, but in place of the usual steel cap it uses fibreglass, to make it lighter and so it will go through airport metal detectors. It looks like an ordinary shoe on top, has the same arch support and a more rugged sole.

Unfortunately both The Athletes Foot and Ascent have very poor web sites, making it difficult to find about their products.