Take a look in any shoe shop; they sit there, perfectly poised and ultra gorgeous, looking down on all other shoes and imperiously willing you to buy them.

The Gwyneth effect, they're calling it. Although in reality it has nothing to do with Gwyneth.

Ms Paltrow may be beautiful, talented and Oscar-winning, but the saviour of the stiletto she is not.

Sales are rising because dressing up is the new dressing down.

And, let's face it, the stiletto didn't needed saving anyway. The heel they named after a slender, lethal knife blade sits resolutely in virtually every glamorous woman's wardrobe. The day you give up wearing it is the day you acknowledge that you and your arches have terminally sunk into old age.

But Gwyneth is getting the credit for sales going through the roof. And all because, when she decided to step out of happy and contented, cosy- slippered mumsydom and back into the limelight to promote a new movie, she marked the fact by going all sexy on us.

Mini dresses that showed miles of milky Gwyneth thigh were made to look all the more risque by the addition of towering heels. It's a pretty standard trick employed by every woman who fancies raising eyebrows by stepping from dowdy to dynamite.

What made Gwynnie's shoes draw so many headlines was the fact that we hadn't seen her in anything smarter than sensible, scuffed loafers for years.

And that they were higher than the norm. Just a tad. For three or four inches, now read seven and eight.

Though don't be fooled into thinking eight-inch stilettos are quite the death traps they sound. These new,skyscraper heels have a built-in, carefully disguised leg up... a thick platform sole which is often encased inside the shoe's leather outer layer. And when your toes are two inches off the ground, then your heels can be that much higher without you noticing a thing.

Lots of woman are jumping, or rather clomping, up and down with glee because platforms are back in fashion.

They are great inventions; not only do they give titches a bit of a boost, but they are quite comfortable to walk in.

I say quite because, let's face it, no shoe that is designed to be sexy and glamorous can ever feel as divinely cosseting as those awful, sheepskin-lined, granny things you got for Christmas many moons ago and are still orgasmically sinking your feet into nightly.

Quite simply, high heels are not supposed to feel as good as they look. Part of their appeal – to the women who desire them, and the men who desire the women in them – is the fact that they look so impossible. So contrived. The way they deform the foot into an arch, and tighten your leg muscles right the way from calf to buttock... it's obvious you're suffering to be sexy.

I'll bet that even your "comfiest" high heels still pinch somewhere. Or rub.

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