In this age of enlightenment, how come we still call them women's dress shoes?

Sure, most of the time we wear our women's dress shoes with a dress, but more often than not we also wear them with our tailored trousers, business suits and jeans. But we don't call them "tailored trousers shoes" do we?

And how come we're still wearing those four-inch stiletto heels, when we know how hard it is to stay out of the cracks in the pavement, even in our flats?

Don't you think we might have learned a lesson by now? The. . . damn. . . things. . . hurt. And they also damage our spine, calf muscles, cause bunions and other equally gross malformations of our feet.

But if Sex and the City taught us anything about the ways of the world in the 21st century, it was that Carrie looked smashing in her Manolo's as she ran, yes, ran, down Park Avenue to meet whichever gorgeous hunk she was schtupping at the time. The moral of the story being "Yes girls, your designer dress shoes will always get you your man!"

So here are my not-so-serious tips on how to have a wardrobe full of fabulous women's dress shoes:

*Make the shoe salesperson your "new best friend". He or she is going to be part of a very, very special relationship - you and your new dress shoes.

*Forget comfort when you've got class! Look at those things! Don't you just have to have them? Regardless of the fact that they feel like you've got metal clamps on your toes? Anyway, you can always sit down somewhere after an hour or so, well, can't you?

*Remember cost does not equal comfort when shopping for designer dress shoes. If they cost two months' salary, they're worth every bit of the pain.

*When trying on your dress shoes, check how you look from every angle - sitting, standing, lying face down or up -- yes, you'll need to know how you look when you're flat on your back after falling off your 4 inch spikes.

Far be it from me to postulate on learning nothing from our forefathers (oops, I mean mothers!), but as long as Mr Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo, and assorted other grand masters of shoe design keep making designer women's dress shoes (there's that phrase again) that are simply to-die-for, well, bunions be damned, I'll die for them!