Uncomfortable high heels, step aside.
Los Gatos podiatrist Joan Oloff sets out to disrupt high heels.
The comfort world says her shoes are too pretty (sorry, Taryn Rose), and the designer world says she isn’t a name brand (this is true). Nobody knows where to put Joan Oloff shoes — except Joan Oloff.
“It’s a new genre we’re creating — it’s trying to break through in a space that doesn’t exist,” says Oloff, a Los Gatos podiatrist whose line of high heels may just be the world’s only orthotically correct high heels.
Oloff ’s shoes contain features you won’t find in other comfort brands: a built-in arch support; a platform with a false bottom in the ball of the foot with cushioning Poron material; and a lower heel pitch. These combine to make the foot more stable by changing the center of gravity and allowing the entire foot — not just the ball of the foot — to bear the body’s weight.
“It’s not rocket science — it’s mechanical engineering; it’s ergonomics,” Oloff said, referring to former Space X employee Dolly Singh’s Thesis Couture shoes, which made a splash with the announcement in 2015 that her team included a rocket scientist and an astronaut.
“One of the things podiatrists do is learn the mechanics of feet and how to make custom orthotics, or inserts, that help mechanical issues with the feet,” Oloff said. “We know how to offload pressure points. We know how to support the foot. We know how to provide shock absorption. So all of those skills that I use in patients, I’ve incorporated into an insole for a high heel. The challenge is how to do all the things you typically do for an athletic shoe or a walking shoe, and now design this into a shoe where you’re not going to sacrifice the fashion of the shoe?”
The result is her latest collection, which debuted in fall 2017, and contains pointy-toed pumps, strappy metallic sandals, lace-up booties, knee-high boots with heels ranging from 2 to 4 inches — and flats, for good measure.
It took four years of trial and error with several shoe designers and fit models and manufacturers in Los Angeles and then Italy before the shoes were up to her standards. Shoemakers wanted to use their own, existing footbeds, to save time and money, and few were willing to hew to her designs for a new type of last and insole. And even when they said they would, she found on subsequent visits to her Italian manufacturer that the arch supports had been put in the wrong place. Her insistence on doing it the right way — her way — led to delays. The shoes’ complexity also means that the shoes — made by hand, with real leather — are more time-consuming to manufacture.
“The world doesn’t need another shoe company — there’s enough high-fashion shoes out there,” Oloff said. “If I’m not going to be a gamechanger, if I’m not going to disrupt the way high heels are made, there’s no point for me to do this.”
Among her fans are fellow doctors, such as San Jose orthopedic surgeon Dr. Pamela Mehta, who is on her feet 12 hours a day and wears the heels in her office with no discomfort — and occasionally wears the flats in the operating room.
“Joan has created a shoe that really matches the anatomy of the
foot,” said Mehta, who owns 10 pairs. “I can tell a difference in the construct she has made. And because I’m quite busy myself in surgery or the office, I need shoes that I can throw on that are beautiful and comfortable.”
Former women’s soccer star Brandi Chastain, a patient of Oloff ’s since her days playing in the World Cup with the San Jose CyberRays, admires Oloff not only for her medical skills but for her fearlessness in taking on the challenge of changing the shoe industry.
“It’s coming from a place of helpfulness,” Chastain said. “It’s not just this quick-buck scheme — nothing about it has been quick. She has dedicated her life to happy and healthy feet for people. I hope this takes off.”
The shoes are sold primarily online, but at a recent trunk show at Mudpie on Fillmore Street, Elaine Mellis, executive director of the nonprofit Open Hearts Foundation, explained why her four
pairs and counting are wardrobe staples for black-tie events.
“You’re walking all over the place, through the Opera House, through City Hall, and at the end of the evening my back feels good, my feet feel good,” Mellis said. “Usually at an opening, I was carrying my shoes by the time I got home.”
The shoes are not inexpensive, at $400 or more, but when you consider that doctors typically charge $500 or more for orthotics alone, the stylish handmade shoes could be considered an investment in one’s health — protection against neuroma surgery and hammertoe surgery and other ailments that heels can cause.
For the record, Oloff does not advise wearing high heels in the first place.
“If you’re going to wear a heel, you should wear a healthier heel,” she said. “And my heels are the only ones that are going to do this.”