Custom Made Shoes
Custom made shoes are a great solution if you're finding it a challenge finding shoes that are comfortable and suitable for their intended usage.
Reasons to buy custom made shoes
Here are just some of the reasons I can think of for buying custom shoes...
- You take a non-standard shoe size. This includes needing one or more of...
- Extra wide shoes
- Narrow shoes
- Large size shoes
- Small shoes
- Half size
- A different size shoe for each foot
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Comfort -- you like fashion shoes, but don't want to, or can't, wear high heels. For some reason it's not easy to find low or medium heel shoes that are also stylish
- To go with a particular outfit, especially...
- Your wedding dress
- Bridesmaids dresses
- Other special occasion wear (mother of the bride, evening wear and so on)
- Business wear
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To be creative
Custom shoe design tips
Having recently designed and bought 2 pairs of cusstom made shoes (see below) I've come to realize that it may be harder than you'd image designing your custom shoes! Here are some tips to make your life easier...
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First decide why you are designing your custom shoes. Is it one of the reasons above, such as your wedding, or some other reason? Identify your main objective. Use your objective to help make your design decisions
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Then consider...
- The occasion or activity -- How formal is the occasion? What time of day? What time of year?
- Your body proportions
- The outfits you want to wear these shoes with -- of course you may well find even more outfits that your finished shoes will go with, so you'll get even more wear out of them, but at least have 1 or 2 outfits in mind to strat
- Your personality
See my article on how to choose and buy shoes to find out more about each of these items.
To get inspiration for current trends in styles, textures and color combinations look at your favorite fashion magazines, websites and shops (both online and high street).
Where to buy custom made shoes
I highly recommend Shoes of Prey, an online store, that ships worldwide, for custom made womens shoes. I have 2 pairs of shoes from them and will be designing and ordering more. I love my Shoes of Prey shoes! See my Shoes of Prey review here.
Another option, if you live in Asia or visit an Asian country I suspect you can find many places that will make custom shoes. I also suspect that to have a successful experience, just as with getting custom made clothes, you will need to do some research to find good shoe makers. Look for personal recommendations, and good sample shoes. And have a clear idea of the design you want.
