From Observer:

7 Pieces of Shoe Advice for Men From 434 Single Women
By Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller • 09/15/15 1:57pm

Tucker Max and Geoffrey Miller are the authors of Mate: Become the Man Women Want

Single women are really judgmental. And they need to be. They don’t have all the time in the world to figure out if a guy is worth their time, so they’ve honed in on a few key things men do on first dates that are reliable indicators of their (lack of) fitness as potential mates. …

To get a more accurate sense of how women judge a guy’s shoes on a first date, we surveyed 434 young, straight, single American women. We showed them 32 types of men’s shoes—each a Zappos.com bestseller in its category. They covered almost everything a normal guy might wear on a date. We asked the women to imagine casual lunch dates with different guys wearing different shoes—and to rate what each shoe type says about the guy wearing them.

We got more than 110,000 individual ratings, and more than 2,000 write-in comments. The women showed very similar tastes, both in what they liked and what they loathed. Their preferences were strong, consistent, simple and—once we crunched all the numbers and analyzed all the comments—broke down into seven major insights that every single man could use going into their next first date.

1. WEAR SHOES THAT COVER YOUR FEET

Women hated every single sandal we showed them—Crocs, Birkenstocks, KEENs, Nike slides, Reef flip-flops, it didn’t matter. These all said, “I have no sense of style, I’m not interested in this date, I have contempt for you as a woman, I’m a lazy loser.” …

2. WEAR LEATHER SHOES

Women like leather. The top seven shoes we showed had entirely leather uppers. The only shoes in the Top 14 that didn’t were Vans and Converse All-Stars—the classic casual sneaker. …

3. WEAR NORMAL SHOES, NOT BOOTS

Of our 12 top-rated shoes, only one was a boot (the Red Wing Iron Ranger, $300). Most of the boots scored in the middle of the rankings …

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. There was a statistically significant strain of cowboy lust among our survey participants, for instance. The problem is that you’re unlikely to know that about a woman before the first date, so you’re better off just wearing normal shoes to be on the safe side.

4. DON’T WEAR ATHLETIC SHOES

Vans and Converse scored O.K., but they’re more “stylish casual” sneakers than true tennis shoes or cross-trainers. … Women are just not impressed if you wear athletic shoes on a date. …

The problem with Vans, the classic SoCal skateboarder canvas sneaker, is that they offer no arch support and are hell on your feet.

5. DON’T SPEND A LOT

Two of the three top-rated shoes in the survey cost less than $100: the Kenneth Cole Reaction Sim-Plicity ($98) and the Dockers Gordon ($50). In fact, 80 percent of the shoes we showed women cost less than $200. Shoe price correlated zero with overall rating, and only modestly with how much women thought the shoe cost. … Besides, on a first date women aren’t looking to see how much you spend on yourself.

6. STYLISH SHOES MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN

Young men, especially, tend to worry that stylish shoes will make them look gay or feminine. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women rated the more stylish, dressy, leather shoes as more manly and masculine, and as making the guy look more sexually experienced, more mature, and better able to protect and defend them physically. … And for women, confidence is the manliest of masculine virtues.

7. WEAR SHOES THAT SHOW YOU MADE AN EFFORT

Too many guys think looking cool and casual is the key to getting laid on the first date. As a result, American guys tend to under-dress, and wear shoes that are much too casual for a first date. … In fact, women equate stylish shoes with, “This guy is interested in the date, respects me, wants to impress me, and is considerate, kind, and mature.” You might think that dressing up for a date says “I’m desperate,” but most women just think it means “I am confident, mature and bright enough to know that this is appropriate footwear for a real man to wear on a real date with a real woman.” And real women find that very attractive.

This kind of quantitative research on clothes can be helpful for young men. Back in the 1970s, a guy named John Molloy published Dress for Success based on his simple experiments and surveys, advice I found helpful in avoiding job interview mistakes.

His findings were pretty obvious in retrospect: basically, dress like a Presidential debate participant: the first thing to buy is a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. Then a grey suit. After you get the job you can add a brownish suit. But people think a man wearing a green suit looks like an embezzler. A bowtie makes you look like a college professor. And so forth and so on.

I don’t know whether Molloy’s findings 40 years ago are still relevant, although I vaguely sense that in this century’s presidential debates that the candidate dressed in red, white, and blue usually wins.