Shoes

Skechers has agreed to pay $40 million to consumers who purchased its  rocker-bottom shoes under the mistaken belief that the shoes would help give them Kim Kardashian's booty or Joe Montana's stamina. So how do you get your piece of the payout if you purchased the shoes months, if not years ago, and don't have a receipt? No problem. This refund relies largely on the honor system. Anyone who purchased the company's line of Shape-Up shoes -- or its Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners -- is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not, officials said Thursday.

MEXICO CITY - It was the kind of big-man boast that would have made Jay-Z or Bo Diddley proud: He owned 300 suits, he said. Four hundred pairs of pants, 1,000 shirts and 400 pairs of shoes. He shopped Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, "the best of Los Angeles. " Unfortunately for Andres Granier, the ex-governor of the state of Tabasco, his fellow Mexicans are in no mood to hear such stuff from the political class. Granier's comments were surreptitiously recorded in October at a Mexico City party, and they have not helped his current predicament: State and federal prosecutors are pursuing criminal investigations of whether Granier and his team mishandled millions of dollars in state funds before leaving office in December.

Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

LAS VEGAS - If Shinola has any brand resonance these days, it's most likely from the phrase: "You don't know [expletive] from Shinola," a World War II-era insult referencing the shoe polish manufactured by Shinola-Bixby Corp. But the brand is back on the scene and in a big way. Founded in 1907, the original Shinola (pronounced SHINE-ola), has been defunct for decades, but the nostalgic name and trademark rights were plucked out of has-been brand obscurity a few years back and applied to a modern-day range of retro-inspired, made-in-America products, including bicycles, leather journals and now handsome wristwatches that retail from $495 to $725.

"Oh, you mean the guy with the 70-year-old head and the 20-year-old body-builder body? That picture has got to be Photoshopped." Dr. Jeffry Life smiles when I tell him about the general reaction I get about the famous picture of him with his shirt off, the shot that turned a mild-mannered doctor in his mid-60s into a poster boy for super-fit aging and controversial hormone replacement Appearing in medical-clinic ads in airline magazines and...

"Stop looking down at your feet and stare straight ahead," says Queen Jazzmun, as I skitter across the hardwood floor in 6-inch Barbara Bui platforms like a newborn giraffe. "The heels are the mistress, and you are the slave. Submit." But who's going to submit my health insurance forms when I am laid up at Cedars, I wonder, during a Sunday afternoon primer on how to walk in high heels. The private instruction came about because Jazzmun -- a transvestite performer and actor/actress -- had recently taught 18 women how to glide atop designer stilts at a course offered by shoe boutique Il Primo Passo in Santa Monica.

There's a moment in Douglas Carter Beane's satire "The Little Dog Laughed" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre when closeted actor Mitchell (Brian Henderson) and hooker boy Alex (Johnny Galecki) realize they actually like each other. They quickly start shedding clothes until there's nothing left to shed. Just as they're about to get down to business, so to speak, Mitchell's slick Hollywood agent, Diane (Julie White), bursts into the room. The audience gasps. Culture Monster stares. Now, stop it, you gutter-minds -- we're not talking about the boys in the buff.

ONE thing that doesn't shrink when people get older are feet: They enlarge. More specifically, they flatten. The feet's tendons and ligaments lose some of their elasticity and don't hold the bones and joints together as tidily. When combined with other aging-related changes, the feet can encounter limits to how much use - or abuse - they can take. Dr. Steven Pribut, a podiatrist at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., estimates that some people over the age of 40 can gain half a shoe size every 10 years.

Most of us consume milk. We put it on cereal and add it to coffee. We give it to our children by the glassful to build up their bones. Women are encouraged to drink it throughout adulthood to maintain those bones. We select this milk from an ever-expanding range. Milk comes in whole, reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat versions. We have organic milk and milk labeled as coming from farms that do not use hormones. But to Northern Californian dairy farmer Ron Garthwaite, these milks aren't milk at all.

What is it about Taryn Rose's shoes that gets her whisked to the White House and persuades sex-bomb Angelina Jolie to entrust the surgeon-fashionista with her tootsies? Rose wouldn't tell all. But, grinning, she did divulge some of what goes into making a heel that, memorably, made Oprah squeal. In the designer's words: "I use Poron, for example, in the 'Clementine' [a suede sandal that's part of the Haute Footure line at Neiman Marcus]. Poron is a memory foam, so it doesn't flatten out over time.

"How do I make this old bike go faster?" That refrain, heard frequently among the teeming masses riding from downtown to the beach in last month's CicLAvia and sure to be repeated again at the next one on June 23, has one obvious answer (work out more, dude) and three not-so-obvious ones: Oil the chain, adjust the seat to the proper height (so there's a slight bend in your knee at the bottom of the pedal stroke) and get some "clip-in" cycling shoes and pedals. Snapped into matching pedals via a step-in cleat you attach to a port on the bottom, clip-in shoes include a stiff sole and the ability to pull up as well as push down, thereby providing a huge mechanical advantage that transfers more of your energy into the crank.

There's magic afoot in Orange County that has nothing to do with a giant mouse or a legendary berry farm and everything to do with George Esquivel and his band of craftsmen who, for more than a decade, have been hand-cobbling high-end shoes for a who's who of the well-heeled, including rock stars, NBA players, politicians and Hollywood heavyweights of every stripe. In a nondescript building off I-5 in Buena Park, pieces of white leather destined to become booties for singer Janelle Monae are being meticulously hand-stitched at one table.

A Boston Magazine cover of multi-hued sneakers shaped into a heart, framing the headline “We Will Finish the Race,” is drawing acclaim as a symbol of hope and recovery in the aftermath of the deadly marathon bombings. The May issue,  which hit newsstands Friday, was nearly completed April 15 when the twin bombs exploded a few blocks from the magazine's office near Copley Square .  Editor John Wolfson said he and his colleagues immediately decided to overhaul the cover and the magazine's stories.

UCLA ends practice the same way every day: Ka'imi Fairbairn stares at the goal posts from 52 yards away and to the left. Fairbairn stood at that distance and angle in December, watching his field goal attempt hook wide. He then watched Stanford celebrate a 27-24 victory in the Pac-12 championship game. “Coach puts me in that position every practice to help me get over it,” Fairbairn said. There is a need for Fairbairn to learn such things and grow - not so much as a kicker, but as a leader.

Sanuk, the Irvine footwear firm known for selling its quirky sandals in surf specialty shops, is coming to beachy Santa Monica this week with its first-ever company-owned store. The flagship shop on the Santa Monica Promenade opens Friday. The lo-fi design is meant to evoke a garage - inspired in part by the space out of which Sanuk founder Jeff Kelley first started crafting shoes in 1998. Jake Brandman, Sanuk's president, said in an interview that he considers the store “a place to play.” The 1,000-square-foot location features a wall display crammed with a hodgepodge of yard-sale and thrift-store finds, including a guitar, a surfboard, a Buddha statue in a fish tank and a pile of videotapes such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Free Willy.”  “Consumers are looking for a diversion from all the serious brands they see in a marketplace,” Brandman said.

NEW YORK - Cyndi Lauper, garlanded in enough jewelry to make the Queen of Sheba jealous, is wondering if she should add yet another bauble. "It's a whatchamacallit, like a Sicilian good luck charm. Whaddya think?" she asks a coterie of assistants buzzing around Sardi's restaurant in Manhattan preparing her for a photo shoot. "Less is more," someone pipes up. PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage Lauper fixes her with a self-aware gaze. "Look who you're talkin' to," she says.

Adidas and eccentric Beverly Hills designer Jeremy Scott are under fire for a new shoe design that critics say calls up painful images of slavery. The shoes come with a set of plastic shackles, and a tag line on Adidas' Facebook page strikes a playful tone : "Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?" But others aren't laughing and have taken to social media to lament the design, due out in August. "Our ancestors fought blood, sweat and tears just so fools can turn pain into an accessory?"

Like miniskirts and French manicures, they surge in popularity every few years. And so the squishy, candy-colored shoes that make you feel as if you are walking across a tray of Gummi Bears are back. Although jellies are well known in their most popular incarnation -- the fisherman shape (with a round toe and T-strap that buckles on the side) -- there's a surprising range of styles to choose from this season.

NEW YORK - Let the record show that on April 4, 2013, the night that "Kinky Boots" opened on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, drag officially became a commodity of the tourist masses. Female impersonation has long had mainstream appeal, but now even the campier tradition has been co-opted. "La Cage Aux Folles" proved that a man in a dress belting "I Am What I Am" could move straight theatergoers to tears. "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" showed that sparkly attired male disco divas traveling the outback on a bus could bring in audiences by the busload.

Port Washington, N.Y., based market research firm NPD Group reports that sales of basketball footwear were up 14% dollar-wise in 2012 compared with the previous year, with January and February 2013 showing sales gains on the first two months of 2012, up 11% and 6%, respectively. According to the results of NPD's recent study, which tracked sales of performance, sports lifestyle and classic basketball shoes at athletic specialty/sporting goods stores, department stores, national chain and footwear chain stores, hoops-related kicks clock in as " one of the fastest growing athletic footwear categories.