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Adjustable High Heels: A Shoe Design To Ease Foot Pain (PHOTOS, POLL)

Two Students Aim To Save Our Feet
SFU Public Affairs and Media Relations

Women love stilettos. They look great with a pair of jeans, are a handy way to add inches and always seem to complete a night-on-the-town outfit. But most of the time, heels are a pain to wear.

Enter two students from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver who hope to end the pain: they've created an adjustable and interactive pair of heels. Nasim Jahangiri and Pantea Shahsavani created the shoe as part of their final project at Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology.

"We learned about the health issues and how heels affect women. When we designed the shoe, we wanted to create something interactive for the future of textile," Shahsavani says, adding Jahangiri approached her with the initial idea in 2011.

The five-inch heel can easily be transformed into a 2.5-inch heel if you feel foot pain. How? The bottom portion of the shoe's heel easily detaches and can be stored inside the remaining heel -- sort of like Matryoshka dolls. The green "pocket tongue" (check out the above picture) has sensors that will vibrate after two hours, alerting individuals to change the height of their heels (this is all in an effort to stave off foot issues).

"Adjustable heels have been done before and our focus is on the interaction. Before you develop health risks, the shoe is basically talking to you," Jahangiri says.

At the moment, the prototype of the shoe isn't complete and the girls plan to work with experts and designers to see where the design can go in the future.

Here are other five products that aim to save our lovely feet.

Damn Heels

Saving Our Feet

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