to take your shoes off

This could be harmful to your health

Unfortunately, this is a serious warning from your body. This may be because your dress shoes unnaturally contort and put pressure on your feet, lower back, and body in a way that caused undue stress.

This stress accumulates over time, and it’s a large reason that many people suffer from back problems later in life.

In fact, mounting evidence has shown that our bodies never made to wear shoes in the first place; human beings were made to be barefoot. This Time article, “These Are the Healthiest Shoes To Wear, According to Scientists“ says:

Daniel Lieberman [a Harvard Professor of Anthropology] and other researchers have found evidence that people who predominantly walk or run in “minimal” shoes—shoes that mimic your bare feet, tend to have stronger, stiffer feet than those who wear traditional shoes.

The concern is that a weaker foot is a foot prone to problems like flat feet,” Lieberman says. Research has linked flat feet to knee pain, cartilage damage and low-back pain. In civilizations around the world, “people who are barefoot or minimally shod have lower rates of flat feet than shod populations,” Lieberman says.

My Story: An Accountant Tired of
His Only Options

My name is Mountain. In 2009, I was a corporate accountant who had to wear dress shoes for work. I had an image to keep up, and I felt trapped between two options:

1. Wearing good looking dress shoes that ruined both my health and sports performance.

2. Wearing a clowny, casual looking barefoot dress shoe to work. While good for my health, I lost a lot of credibility and even respect from some of my more judgmental coworkers and clients.

Both options seemed terrible, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had to make a great looking, barefoot dress shoe.

They needed to have no heel drop so my posture would be improved and a wide toe box for my toes to splay naturally.

Most dress shoes shoes can wreak havoc on your foot health. They put your toes in a death grip, which can cause bunions, plantar fasciitis, and many other foot problems. They also have heels, which can cause calf shortening, ankle pronation, flat feet, foot pronation, and more.

Knowingly wearing traditional dress shoes like these felt like I was consciously deciding to smoke and degrade my health. I loved my family and life too much to treat myself that way. I would rather take a deep whiff from a trash can or wear ugly barefoot shoes than wear a modern dress shoes.

It was simply not an option for me because I wanted to live my best and healthiest life.

Image is everything at work, and I didn’t want to spend 4 hours on a presentation only to be ignored by my coworkers because of my shoes. Talk about a waste of career. My experience isn’t unfounded either. Here’s some research that shows exactly how dressing well can affect your work performance.

1. Having attractive shoes may lead coworkers to have a higher opinion of you. Specifically, they may think you have high conscientiousness (aka the ability to: set and keep long-range goals, deliberate over choices, behave cautiously or impulsively, and take obligations to others seriously) according to the study “Shoes as a source of first impression”. Being perceived to have all these traits is extremely valuable with peers, bosses and clients, and this is the why behind business dress codes, really.

2. First impressions can last one month or more, according to a study. Combine this with the fact that first impressions can be made quickly (people debate whether it’s in 1/10th, 1, or 7 seconds.. but it’s pretty quick), and you can see how important it would be to craft the right image. If your coworkers or clients are sticklers about style, Carets could help you avoid the hassle of being poorly perceived for long periods of time without sacrificing comfort.

3, “Dressing the part” boosts confidence. In this Scientific American article, they cite a study from the American Psychology Association mentioning that dressing formally can help you win more in a negotiation game. Dressing less formally could result in lower testosterone levels.

In order to build the best looking dress shoe, I began by deliberately analyzing the flaws of existing barefoot dress shoes, and there were two main issues.

First, a lack of heel creates an unsophisticated look. 99%+ of dress shoes today have a heel. Check out the Vivobarefoot Ra, from the side. Notice that the lack of a heel makes it look unsophisticated. A good exercise would be to ask your stylish friends if barefoot shoes without heels look dressy. I guarantee you the vast majority would say “no”.

Now take a look at the Carets shoe. From most angles, we look like we have a heel...

However, if you take a look at our shoe from the side, you’ll see that it’s simply a visual illusion.

This genius design is patented and unique to Carets. Most of your coworkers and friends won’t be able to tell that there isn’t a heel until they see it from the side, or if they see the bottom of the shoe.

As you can see in the picture, your foot sits on the bottom of the fake heel. Your foot gets all the benefits of a zero-drop shoe while still looking great in dressy situations.