Are The Spanx Of Shoes As Comfortable As They Are Ugly?

When you wobble around in high heels long enough, something strange happens to your feet. Once baby-soft appendages begin to callus, and if you’re as sneaker-phobic as I am, you might even find their shape begins to mutate, transforming once comfortable shoes into torture devices and once beautiful toes into scrunched-up little piggies. It’s almost as if women of a certain age are destined to be punished for their vanity, smushing up against the beauty standards we once so desperately chased. But I’m unwilling to give up on my New York fantasy, one where stylists like Carine Roitfeld continue wearing six-inch stilettos throughout their 60s and where editors like myself commute in kitten heels, as if every stroll to the office is a scene ripped from Sex and the City. So when I first came across an advertisement for Sneex, a Y2K-inspired sneaker heel that promises to “revolutionize the women’s shoe industry with its marriage of style and comfort,” I knew I had to dip my toes.

Created by Sara Blakely, the business-savvy inventor of the shapewear company Spanx, Sneex looks exactly how it sounds: like a start-up shoe for ladies and other practical folk who think mesh accents and Velcro straps add a little flair to otherwise tepid outfits. In other words, they’re kind of dorky. This is not to say that Sneex are ugly, but rather that they are more sneakerish than stylish, or at least that is my first impression when I unboxed my very own gifted pair of “Varsity Green” stilettos the day before New York Fashion Week officially began. “Say hi to the hy-heel, a luxury hybrid stiletto,” the box interior read. “Sunnier days are expected for women. They will no longer have to choose between style and comfort.”

After my Sneex arrived, I only had 20 minutes to get ready for my first show. I struggled in the mirror. All I could bear to pair with my new shoes was a black Prada midi skirt and matching cashmere polo. It’s giving tennis, I convinced myself as I added a sheer white sock for flair and slid my feet into the stilettos. “That looks crazy,” my husband scoffed. “You don’t understand fashion!” I replied, and ran out the door.

My first stop was the eBay Endless Runway show, where one of the makeup artists validated my styling choice. “You look amazing,” she said. “Head to toe.”

Photo: Taylore Scarabelli

On the walk home, I began to feel my pressure points flair up. Sneex only come in full sizes, and my 6.5 feet were starting to suffocate, as if my revolutionary heels were just like any old stiletto. I began to question whether the shoes were worth the squeeze. That’s until I reached Delancey Essex, where a 30-something-year-old man in tight chinos and a red Fedora called out, “Cool shoes!”

Later that evening, I shoved my way into a Miu Miu event crowded with hot girls in nerdy eyewear. “You’re one of three people on the planet who can wear those shoes,” Brenda Weischer, an influencer known for her strictly black-and-white wardrobe, said. She wasn’t a fan, but the writer Liana Satenstein, who’s somewhat of a freaky footwear connoisseur herself, was more optimistic. “I think it works really well. You’re sporty in the front and a little nasty in the back,” she told me. I took both comments as compliments, but that didn’t obscure the fact that my feet were screaming. I wondered if the New Balance Miu Mius were more comfortable.

“Those are…nice,” said the artist Drake Carr after glimpsing my astroturf-colored feet at the opening of photographer Ethan James Green’s “Bombshell” exhibition that evening. “I think he was lying,” I told the author Natasha Stagg as we descended the stairs. I was getting paranoid, insecure even, and we hadn’t even made it to the most fashionable event of the night.

I came to terms with my swollen feet and suboptimal outfit at the Women’s History Museum show. The collection was a commentary on the hardened individuals who persevere in New York, girls who fall down and do it all over again. Maybe it was a sign. Afterward, as I teetered down the street with a group of friends, my feet on fire once again, a sudden cacophony of praise was directed toward my toes. Sneex may feel the same as any other three-inch heel, but what they lack in comfort and style is what they make up for in drama. “I would totally rock those,” A DJ said. “I need to start wearing mine,” replied an editor. Perhaps the pain was worth it?