I’m not going to drag this out as I am unbelievable busy today. I saw this post on Flypaper which led me to the New York Observer which reminded me of something our business director said when talking to another fashion editor.
Still with me? Ok.
There’s been a dearth of designer shoes for women with larger feet. Pierre Hardy, Louboutin, Blahnik, Choo and the rest of the shoe design deities definitely must think that outside of the occasional model, women don’t come in any size larger than 10. To be perfectly honest, the closer you get to 10 and beyond, the harder it is to find exactly that perfect pair for which one draws an emotional attachment. So when Simon Doonan of the Observer wrote an article talking about Payless’ designer devotion to women with larger sized feet and Wendy at Flypaper seconded, I thought Payless?
Then I realized, at this stage, Payless is to shoes what H&M is to clothes. Noonan posits in the article whether Manhattan publicist/socialite, Nadine Johnson wears Blahnik, Prada, Pierre Hardy, when looking at her strappy heels to which Johnson replies,
“Payless.com! Nineteen dollars—six pairs for under $120. Plastic! Gasolina! And very sturdy.They go up to a 13 wide…And they are chic! If you sprayed the soles hot pink, people would think you were wearing Louboutins.”
Our business director let me in on a little secret as well from a conversation he had with a fashion editor. He did so as if he was telling some sort of CIA secret. He looked around, pulled me in and whispered: “there is very little difference in quality between Payless and the major designers, some of the products might actually be made in the same factory.”
Ok, I’m letting out a secret, but the moral of this long winded story is that:
a. Payless has designer-like shoes for women with larger feet (and smaller) with similar quality and lower prices that socialites wear and feel fabulous about.
b. Sometimes it takes me a long time to make a point.
3 Comments
What I have got to say, is I think most larger-footed women already know that. Their larger sizes are totally picked over all the time and I still have some shoes from there that I got probably 5 years ago. I got married in Payless shoes. They are the best option around for trendy affordable dress shoes in my size, I don’t wear them every day but I take care of them and they take care of me right back. And nothing over $30! So basically I’m agreeing with you but I take my time too.
Like Anne said, those of us with bigger feet have known this for years. 5′10″ women very rarely wear a size 10 or below. I’ve been wearing Payless for years without anyone knowing.
I wear US Size 13 and I must admit that it is very difficult to find fashionable shoes. Due to this reason, I created a blog called mylovelybigfeetblog.com. It is a fashion shoe blog that offers daily updates on where to find fashionable shoes for men and women with big or large feet.
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