I travel with my (man's) black work shoes and I put spring-loaded shoe trees inside them to keep them in shape.
In hand baggage, the great thing is that spring-loaded shoe trees look like some kind of spring-loaded, collapsible gun-barrel and always get a hoot from the X-ray machine people.
Like the gun that Edward Fox used in "Day of the Jackal" built from parts:
http://cdn.mos.totalfilm.com/images/...kal-800-75.jpg