Well, what may be the true litmus test of the comfort level of a high heel shoe was setup in St Petersburg in Juy 2007. As can be viewed in the jckonline blog, 100 women competed in Glamour Stiletto Run High Heel Race with the minimum heel height being 3.5 inches. They competed for a shopping voucher worth about $2,000 and was organized by European Glamour magazine.

Comfortable Shoes blog also posted videos of the event. Some of the interesting comments on the Shoeblog site pointed out that this is reminiscent of the Easy Spirit commercials when women were shown playing basketball in their high heels!

Speaking of basketball, comfort, and fashion, Cole Haan is famous for incorporating Nike’s Zoom Air System into their shoes. This technology was first used in basketball shoes, and Cole Haan has placed it into the heel and under the front sole of their high heels as was pointed out in the hipcandy blog.

This was done to prove that fashionable shoes can be associated with major comfort. As the Womensdesignershoes blog, Cole Haan has a solid history of dressing women in stylish and classy footwear since the Roaring ’20s. Being a wholy owned subsidiary of Nike for over the past ten years now, Cole Haan now has the distinction of marrying the Nike air shock technology with their fashion forward styles. In fact, this shoe line has received a major endorsment from no less than Oprah herself. The youlookfab blog has Oprah claiming, “This is life changing. It’s not a cure for cancer, but it is a cure for your feet.”

Another major celebrity who loves Cole Haan was on hand for the opening of the new Cole Haan shoe boutique at the new The Shoppes at The Palazzo in Vegas. As can be seen in the lasvegasbs site, super-singer Seal bought three pairs himself. Cole Haan’s new president Jim Seuss stated that the Vegas store is a new prototype, the first in America to display high-fashion and luxury with comfort.

NY Shoe Spy highlights Cole Haan G-Series Grenbrae as wedding day shoes that non-traditional brides might wear who are looking to spend that special day in ultra comfort.

However, I think there is a limit to this concept of marrying technology with fashion. As aptly pointed out by ShoeFlyer, Nike has joined forces with Japanese toymaker, Tomy, to create the Transformer shoes for a cool trend with the geek crowd. Don’t be looking for this concept to carry over to the Cole Haan collection any time soon!