Whether they’re Louboutin freaks like Victoria Beckham, or just ordinary people looking for a lift, platforms help us rise above the crowd. It’s been a timeless trends for decades: indeed modern platforms look tame by the standards of the Seventies, when two-inch soles were de rigeur. Some were three times as high, threatening careless wearers with ankle sprains, or even lasting spinal damage.

Men weren’t immune back then either. Rocket Man-era Elton John loved them, and John Travolta strutted on platforms through Saturday Night Fever. Neither seems tempted to revive their old excesses. As one doctor warns: “With platforms, your brain loses feedback from the foot, which is not touching the ground in a normal fashion. You lose touch with your sense of balance.” And that’s exactly what fans of sky-scraper shoes like these Brian Atwood Margie Peep-Toe sandals like. After all, life’s too short to stay grounded.

All heel the stiletto

It’s not that women are masochists. But if a pair of shoes is this sexy, they are going to wear it no matter how painful they may be.

Stilettos rose to fame in the mid-1900s, when Hugh Hefner chose narrow-bladed heels to be part of the official attire for his Playboy Playmates. Today, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin’s shoe collections cannot be completed without a line of sharp, dazzling stilettos.

Stilettos have become a stylish fetish item for many women. Sex and the City may be to blame for this. Nonetheless, they’re the perfect choice for office wear, evening wear, even casual wear with a simple pair of jeans. A stiletto’s sleek, slender heel may go up to 18 centimeters with less than 1 centimeter in diameter. Clearly, they’re meant for those who aren’t afraid of heights.

If you are indeed one of these women, add Stilettos to your Timeless 50.

Flats have fought a battle with heels, their arch nemesis, for centuries. They just about weathered the two-inch boost given to Catherine de Medici on her wedding day, which gave a boost to heels for some time after. They came back into style when Marie Antoinette sported heels on the way to the guillotine in perhaps the greatest public relations disaster in footwear history. It was the inimitable Audrey Hepburn, though, in the 1957 movie Funny Face, who ensured that ballet flats would become a staple of every girl’s wardrobe, and qualify in the process for inclusion in the Timeless 50.

Comfort is one reason they will stay there: tottering around on heels all day is not exactly a fun proposition.

But they can also look great with skinny jeans, leggings or a short skirt, whether you are talking the classic lines of dance-shoe specialist Bloch, the elegant originality of London Sole, or the daring of Christian Louboutin.

Flats will always have their defenders, including it would seem the UK’s Trades Unions Congress which was recently to be found debating a ban on high heels for the damage they cause to the suffering feet of Britain’s women.  Ballet flats, it would seem are not only timeless but the healthier option. Vote now for ballet flat’s inclusion in the Timeless 50.