Tanya Heath is on a double mission: to prove women can wear heels without ruining their feet, and that her answer to their plight, a heel that switches from high to low, can be made entirely in France.
塔尼娅-海斯身兼双重任务：一要证明女性可以穿着高跟鞋而不伤脚，二要证明她对女性们的这一困境有解决的办法：一个可以由高变低的鞋跟在法国完全可以实现。

The Paris-based Canadian started with a simple idea. When your shoes start to hurt -- half way through a party, a wedding or a workday -- press a button in the sole, slot out your dressy high heel and replace it with a walking version.
这位旅居巴黎的加拿大女性开始的想法很简单。不论是参加聚会、婚礼，还是某天工作的时候，当你的鞋开始令你脚疼时，按一下鞋底的键，收起你那雅致的高跟，换上适合走路的鞋跟。

"I'm a feminine feminist," is how the 42-year-old sums up her philosophy. "My shoe is designed to be sexy -- but on the woman's terms."
“我是个很强调女人味的女权主义者，我的鞋要设计得性感，但这得女人说了算。”42岁的她是这样总结她的设计哲学的。

"You can do your two-hour meeting, and then you just take off your high heel," she explained at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris this month. "You're getting relief -- and you're getting home."
“你可以开上两个小时的会，然后去掉高跟换上适宜的鞋跟，” 她在本月巴黎的道德时装秀上解释说，“你得到了放松，就像是在家一样舒适。”

So far so good, except the trick -- which no one had quite figured out until now -- is how to keep the shoe balanced and comfortable both on tip-toe and when you tilt it back to sit on a low heel.
到目前为止一切都还顺利，除了有一个问题需要解决：如何在穿着高跟鞋和把它倾斜到低跟的时候，都能使鞋既保持平衡又舒适——直到现在也没有人真的想出办法来。

Fruit of three painstaking years of research, Heath's patented answer to the riddle is billed as the world's first multi-height heel, a luxury leather shoe that switches seamlessly from 3.5 to 1.5 inches.
三年的精心研究换来了成果，海斯对这个难题的破解方案已申请了专利，号称是世界上第一款鞋跟高度多变的奢华皮鞋，其鞋跟高度可以从3.5英寸到1.5英寸之间无缝变化。

From pastel pink patent sandals to strappy dancing shoes or demure lace-ups, with either stiletto or chunky heels, high or low, the shoes are pitched at the high end of the market, starting at around $320 dollars.
从申请了专利的淡粉色凉鞋，到绑带的舞鞋，或者庄重的系带靴，不是细高跟就是粗跟，鞋跟或高或低，这种鞋被定位在高端市场，一开始的售价约为320美元。

With models harking back to the 1920s, Heath wanted a "deliberately nostalgic" style to offset the "gee-whizz technology".
通过使鞋的式样回归到20世纪20年代，海斯想要一种“刻意怀旧”的风格来衬托其“绝妙的技术”。

A passionate heel-wearer, Heath's project was born partly of personal experience, having suffered foot deformations from heels, like an estimated 38 percent of women worldwide.
海斯酷爱高跟鞋，她的这个想法一半是源自自己的亲身经历，她因穿高跟鞋而脚部变形，估计世界上有38%的女性也有相同体会。

"I had had enough of aching feet, and I refused point blank to wear ballerina flats," she joked. But she also wanted to show shoes could still be made in a high-cost economy like France.
“我受够了脚疼，并且我也绝对不穿芭蕾平底鞋，”她开玩笑说。然而她也想表示，这些鞋仍可以在成本高的经济体中制造，比如说法国。

In 1996, Heath left a job as policy analyst at the Canadian foreign ministry for a new life in Paris, following her oil executive fiance, a "camembert and champagne" lover who refused to be based anywhere else.
1996年，海斯辞去了加拿大外交部政策分析师的工作，跟随作为石油高管的未婚夫前往巴黎开始了新的生活。她的未婚夫酷爱卡门贝干酪和香槟酒，不愿在其他任何地方定居。

Once there she learnt French at business school, worked in management and high-tech, then private equity, all while raising three young children.
她曾在那里的商业学校学习法语，从事管理、高科技，然后私人募股方面的工作，养育了3个小孩。