Remember Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, and all the thousands of women like her, who commuted to work across hard urban pavement in white sneakers underneath crisp navy skirt suits and shoulder pads? Early 90s memories of Wall Street women rushing toward lower Manhattan are not among my most sartorially significant, although they sure conjure up a specific female prototype.

I guess several factors contribute to the decline of the Reebok Executive, and we can be thankful for all of them-mostly. We’d have to do a pretty extensive cost/benefit analysis on the whole everybody-in-khakis, casual-ization of the workplace thing before we decided for sure on that. The office is, in most industries, a far less formal place than it used to be, but nevertheless,
spike heels are not any less spiky, whether worn for stomping into conference rooms or onto dance floors, and there’s a new non-white, non-sneaker shoe in town that aims to be there for women when the going gets tough.

And I do mean in town. The company that launched the packable, roll-able, there-when-you-need-it ballet-type flat pictured here (it comes in black, gold, and silver) is based in your town. The women behind Seattle’s Fabbys figure most of us aren’t really into making an all-day affair of our four-inchers, so they created what is essentially a more presentable slipper to save the day – or, more likely, the night.

Now let me be straight on one thing: I’m not a high heels kinda girl. My mom didn’t allow them in high school, and I learned to live without them. So I suppose it’s easy for me to say that in the best case scenario, we leave the house wearing shoes that we can wear for the duration of time we plan to be out in the world. But still.

If you can’t stand the height, don’t wear the heels. Or something like that.

Fabbys come in a little velvet pouch and are marketed at women who travel for business (‘why are our connecting flights ALWAYS at opposite terminals?’ asks a road-wary voice on the "About" page), live in urban settings, and/or are getting married, and I understand that in each of those settings any of us might want an elongated line and lifted tush-and then, of course, a break from that-but I can’t help but think that ultimately, what’s sexier and more stylish is to wear what you’re wearing without a plan B. One of the most unattractive things you can do is wear clothes you don’t feel good in, and, on the other hand, a big indicator of style is ease. I mean, who packs a pair of sweats for when the skinny jeans get too skinny? And in this competitive marketplace where value counts as much as trend, there are plenty of shoemakers making gorgeous, orthopedically mindful heels. Why not invest in shoes that you can actually wear?

What about you? What’s your take on spare shoes?