ShopEatSleep

There are many powerful-but-smaller-statured men — Napoleon, Prince, Tom Cruise — who may not necessarily want to wear shoes with higher heels (well, with the exception of Prince) to feel taller. Shoe lifts have been around for decades, but now there’s a “cooler” version available for the likes of those Ryan Seacrest types: LiftKits.

There are two versions, the Lo-Top for 1 extra inch and the Hi-Top for 1.5 to 2 inches. Both are made out of neoprene gel. They come in different colors, but I assume that’s for differentiation purposes and not so much style since you can’t see them once they’re inserted anyway.

Since the LiftKits are made for men’s shoes (women’s lifts are coming soon, I’m told), I tried them out on my boyfriend, Rory. Unfortunately I had underestimated the ankle height of his sneakers, and they turned out to be way too low to even use the Lo-Top lifts as his foot wouldn’t fit into his shoe anymore.

Not happening for Rory in these shoes...

But apparently that’s not far from the way they’re supposed to be worn. Check out how high your heel would sit in these shoes in this photo from the LiftKits Web site:

Hi-Top lifts

Since Rory doesn’t own shoes with a higher ankle, such as boots, he wasn’t able to test out how comfortable they were by actually wearing them. However, I stepped onto the LiftKits, and they felt pretty darn comfortable: they had a good amount of give and were almost downright bouncy. Apparently the neoprene gel molds to your feet and settles your foot into the lift after some time, so maybe they get even more comfortable with wear.

So if you don’t mind having your foot coming halfway out of your shoe (I assume this wouldn’t be a problem in combat or cowboy boots or something like that), LiftKits would probably be pretty comfortable. After all, women have worn much more uncomfortable and downright painful shoes in the name of increased height.