My boyfriend’s style isn’t bad. Unlike many guys out there, he actually cares about his clothes and doesn’t just pick stuff off the floor in the morning and pile it on randomly. He likes to look good. He also doesn’t own any off the shoulder boatneck sweaters like some people I know (and thank goodness for that!). So when he told me that he is bringing a pair of running shoes for our trip to Europe, I was a bit taken aback.

After the initial reaction of “YOU ARE WHAAAAAAAAAAAT???”, I could kind of see where he was coming from. The pair of Converse high tops that he usually wears and that I love dearly are not very comfortable and won’t be an ideal choice for long (loooong) walks that we are bound to take (blisters aren’t fun in Canada, can’t imagine they’d be a blast in Europe)…So what now? Am I going to let him look like a typical North American tourist in a t-shirt that reads “I am CANADIAN!”, khaki shorts, thick white athletic socks, and…running shoes??? I might as well sign him up for the Da Vinci Code tour around Paris and be done with it!

Instead, I thought a little showcase of what else is out there in casual footwear might do the trick in preventing him from crossing over to the dark side. In my humble opinion, a simple black sneaker/casual shoe could be just as comfy as “the shoe that will not be named”, and look a thousand times better! Just ask Patrick Dempsey.