FOOTWEAR Fashion and design become sole mates

Since shoes have tongues, they can speak for themselves after a wonderful makeover.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.
Love me because I'm a shoe that is comfortable, really comfortable, as well as lovely to look at.
Most comfortable shoes are ugly. And most stylish shoes are a pain in the bunion.
I'm different. My beauty is more than skin deep -- though my fine Spanish-leather skin is marvelously smooth and supple.
But, like fine bone structure in humans, my true beauty comes from my underlying design: my firm but flexible frame, roomy toe box, stable heel and deep-cushioned sole.
I'm Rosalind, one of 23 styles in a new family of dress shoes called Nota Bene. (That's Latin for "note well.") Our matriarch is Jennifer Lovitt Riggs.
I was born, so to speak, in Jenny's small white house in Orlando's College Park neighborhood, then raised in Spain, home to some of the world's finest shoemakers. Now I'm back in the States, starting to gain a toehold in shoe boutiques in the East, Midwest and California.
Here's the rub
It started with a blister, says Riggs.
Three years ago, while working for a management consulting firm in Washington, D.C., she was sent to give a briefing at the Pentagon. While hiking across the vast parking lot in her high heels, she developed a blister.
"I wanted to be focused on my presentation, not my blister," says Riggs. "I remember looking at my male colleagues in their comfortable shoes, and thinking, 'I bet they're not thinking about their feet.'"
The blister healed. But the germ of an idea, like a pebble in a shoe, kept pressing for attention.
"I kept wondering, Why isn't there a dress shoe for women that's comfortable enough to wear all day but also good-looking?" says Riggs, 33, who majored in political science and economics.
Riggs' quest for a stylish work shoe began two years ago, several months after the blister incident. Putting her formidable research and networking skills to work, she surfed shoe sites on the Internet, attended shoe shows, quizzed retailers, consulted podiatrists and orthopedic surgeons, and mailed surveys to female focus groups.
Waste of money
Among her key findings: Working women crave dress shoes that combine fashion with function. Poorly fitting shoes cause American women to spend $3.5 billion on foot surgery and miss 15 million work days annually, according to the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society. And although some dress-shoe manufacturers are trying, none has achieved the perfect balance between appearance and performance.
Riggs decided to give it a shot.
Staking her life savings on the venture, she courted additional investors and redoubled her research and development efforts.
She tapped Erv Shames, former CEO of Stride Rite shoes (and another Edgewater High School alumnus) to be her mentor.
She also roped in her family: husband Todd Riggs as CEO; stepfather Phil Sargent to run her Mills Avenue warehouse; mother Nancy Sargent to be her "sounding board"; and even her grandmother and great-aunt to host "lick-and-stick parties" for her mailings.
Makes connection
She connected with Peter Chiara, an experienced shoe designer in New York. And, seven months' pregnant, Riggs traveled to Spain to find a factory willing to make shoes a new way.
For a year, she tinkered with prototypes, schlepped samples to shoe shows and courted retailers.
In February, she moved with her family back to Orlando. Two months later, she launched her first collection of Nota Bene shoes.
"Since then, things have been really moving," she says, with obvious excitement. "We're in more than 20 stores and growing."
Nota Bene shoes are selling "very well" at Shoooz, says owner Jill Biege, who stocks about eight styles.
"Dressy comfort shoes are just starting to emerge in the shoe world. These are some of the first," she says.
The $200 price tag, adds Biege, "is appropriate for the quality of shoe she's designed."
Jenny spent much of her time and money on "corrective surgery." That is, she reshaped the last, the block around which shoes are built. By adjusting the last's dimensions, she made sure shoes wouldn't pinch toes or blister heels.
Next, she experimented with different heel heights, widths and shapes, making sure they would be stable but graceful.
Shock waves
For insoles, she turned to athletic-shoes, using high-tech materials for cushioning and shock absorption. And she cut the soles from thick, durable, nonslip leather.
Then came the cosmetic makeover. She designed toes in a variety of shapes -- round, square and pointed. She chose colors that range from business basics such as black, blown, camel and red, to fashion shades such as raspberry and lime. And she decorated her shoes with tabs or laces, buckles or bows.
The result: Shoes that are pretty but practical, treading a fine line between style and comfort.