Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016, held from September 30 and ending yesterday, encompassed an arsenal of couturier froth from old favourites like Saint Laurent to the gritty street silhouettes of Parisian designer Isabel Marant. More than ever, the reason to be court-side on the catwalk was to get the closest possible look at the shoes the designers were showing.Podiatrists will be happy to know there was barely a high heel in sight at the women's wear Spring/Summer 2016 shows in Paris this week. No measured click of metallic crescents or saw-toothed reptilian-like clasp of strap on unwelcoming feet. The beau monde , the honeyed sunset crowd, have noted that Amal Clooney , such a high wire girl, has turned into a piece of top-heavy scaffolding , a broken glass bottle cemented to a garden wall, as her feet rasp the ground like bristled brushes."The thing is," said an old roué of our city, "there is something anticipatory about high heels that nearly always lets you down. They promise sex, but seldom deliver."Style is as slight as incense smoke, baffling, complex and perverse, but girls in flat heels are natural conquerors. This year boots and sneakers are hot.What could be more alluring than Wooyoungmi's silk-layered sneakers or Lanvin's colour pop kicks? The trick is to team heavy duty, Thom Browne's rubber- covered ankle boots, with a whisper of iridescent yarns, metallic prints and diluted jacquards of this year's trend shades of swampy and shadowy darks lined with luxe gold embroidery.Personal favourites in the shoe world are Repetto original ballet flats, Mellow Yellow's quirky unconventional chic and best of all Trippen's new China flats in red elk leather.The rule always was the taller the person, the higher the heel. Short people venturing out needed ladders to meet eye to eye as they became surrounded by menacing height and, God knows, the effects on the parquet flooring was lethal.The secret is subtlety. Like the old poets of the city who would cover their windows on nights of the full moon lest they be overcome by its beauty, so flatties are a master of seductive evasion, fugitive as smoke under a door.Instead of stumbling along on killer heels, flats will release you from the chains of vampire chic and allow you to glow in the chiaroscuro of true style.And there is one place where heels are really not wanted - and that is the apartment above yours...