If the Shoe Fits, Wear It. If Not, Design One That Does

EVEN for the most dedicated shopper, finding just the right pair of shoes can be elusive. A store-to-store search — whether on the Web or at the mall — can take hours. Shoppers may think they’ve found the perfect pair, only to be stymied by a problem with fit, style or color.

If you don’t like the shoes you find in the stores, you can go to a Web site like Stevemadden.com and choose your own color, pattern, style and size.

It’s not that retailers don’t try, as the huge shoe sections in department stores like Saks and Nordstrom, and Web sites like Zappos and Shoes.com, attest. But for those with very individual or exacting tastes — and with money to spare — some Internet retailers offer design-it-yourself options in footwear. Customization is more common with athletic shoes, but fashion footwear is beginning to catch up.

Makers like Vans and Nike are among the companies that offer customized shoes, allowing both women and men to create their own look from existing styles, colors and materials.

Cale Valdez, a college student in Huntington, Calif., went to vans.com to find a memorable look for his wedding last month. He designed some red and black canvas slip-ons for the wedding party, including matching lace-ups for his father-in-law.

“My groomsmen had black tuxes and red vests, so we thought it would look great to have red shoes,” he said of the slip-ons, which cost $40 a pair.

Nikeid.com, which attracts almost as many women as men, has customers who order hundreds of pairs. The hip-hop disc jockey known as Clark Kent, of Brooklyn, has designed 350 pairs of shoes on the site, including his favorite, a pair of purple, black and teal Air Force 1’s, which cost him about $275.

“The biggest attraction is the ability to shock,” he said. “You want a pair that people notice so they ask you: ‘Where did you get those?’”

While customized sneakers are available on many athletic shoe Web sites, fashion shoes are harder, although not impossible, to find.

For women who are willing to spend a hefty sum, there is Tupli, started three years ago by two women who were leaving careers in banking.

“This is ideal for the woman who can imagine the perfect shoe but can’t find it,” said Kathy Myczowski, 34. She went into the individual shoe design business with Tamara Chubinidze, 26, who is from the Republic of Georgia, where such shoemaking is more prevalent and where Tupli’s shoes are made.

Clients can browse tupli.com for ideas and then send in their measurements, or be measured personally in New York. Tupli had a by-appointment shop in Manhattan for a couple of years, but switched to online last year because its customers were far flung, Ms. Myczowski said.

Amolyn Peart, a banking manager who has purchased three pairs of shoes from the company, became intrigued with the idea after spotting a woman wearing Tupli footwear (a name derived from the Russian word for shoe) at a business gathering.

“The shoes were so gorgeous and unusual, so I immediately asked her where she got them,” said Ms. Peart, of West Orange, N.J. Like many people, she is hard to fit: her shoe size is between 8 1/2 and 9, and ready-made shoes are often too tight in the toe.

Tupli’s clients — who include the actress Susan Sarandon — have a choice of leather and suede, as well as embellishments like rhinestones and personal logos, and initials on the upper or even on the sole, said Ms. Myczowski.

The first made-to-measure Tupli shoe that Ms. Peart designed for herself was a black and red pump for an event at work. “Everyone noticed it, especially because they were all wearing black shoes,” she recalled.

Since then, she has ordered another pair of shoes and a pair of boots.

Prices for Tupli shoes start at a hefty $750 for shoes and $1,450 for boots, and customers must wait six to eight weeks for them.

Those who want a less expensive made-to-order shoe that won’t take as long to arrive can turn to Stevemadden.com. Steven Madden, founder of the company, says more than 100,000 pairs of design-your-own shoes have been sold through the site, where the prices range from $90 to $170.

That’s what Robert Klemm, 27, a loan officer in Bethpage, N.Y., did last summer after he learned about Steve Madden Ltd.’s “Design Your Own Collection.” A shoe aficionado — he owns 60 pairs — he wanted to create some shoes to surprise his girlfriend, Kate Feehan, for her birthday.

Starting with her size, 9, he clicked through the site to select a style, heel and color, putting together a navy gingham open-toe pump with a cork heel and sole that Mr. Klemm thought “would look good with everything from jeans to dresses.”

He spent $150 plus shipping and tax. The site charges a 20 percent premium for made-to-order shoes, which are assembled in China and are not returnable. The turnaround time is three weeks, according to the site.

RIGHT now, Stevemadden.com has almost no online competition. But Jeffrey Van Sinderen, apparel analyst for B. Riley & Company in Los Angeles, predicted that other makers would not be far behind, despite the large investment needed to set up a factory to make the shoes and a system to distribute them.

Made-to-order shoes are profitable, he said, and “it answers the question of how you make the product more compelling to the consumer, and that’s to give them the power to design it.”

In shoes, passion often trumps the practical. To Mary A. Johnson, 22, online design is about owning something unique.

Ms. Johnson, a student at West Los Angeles College, owns 200 pairs of shoes, but that didn’t stop her from going to Stevemadden.com recently to design some ballet flats in a purple shade and trimming them in red.

“This is something you make yourself,” she said, “instead of settling for what’s out there.”

Source: New York Times, 12/01/07

Lots of shoe bargains to be had online

Buying clothing online is quick and convenient. I've found a lot of great garments this way.

But shoes?

They seem like something you'd really need to try before you buy, but online shoe shopping is really popular. Lisa Lee Freeman, editor-in-chief of ShopSmart magazine says there are several reasons for that.

"Because first there are lots of bargains. All the sites have their sale and clearance areas. And also the selection is unbelievable, not just for styles but let's say you're an odd size like a 5 or a 12, you're going to find it easier to find those shoes online."

Freeman says, if you're new at shoe shopping online, stick to the brands you know.

"For example, if you like Nine West, you can pretty much be sure that if you order a size 7, you know your a size 7 in that shoe, it's going to be pretty consistent with that brand," Freeman said.

Another tip: Shop at the sites that have really easy return policies. ShopSmart recommends PiperLime.com and Zappos.com because they let you send back unwanted shoes for free.

Source: KOMO News, 11/19/07

Shock-Absorbing Shoes: Bad For Knees?

Those shock-absorbing athletic shoes and clogs designed to protect and cushion the feet may be bad for arthritic knees.

When researchers examined the effects of different types of footwear on people with knee osteoarthritis, they found that going barefoot put less stress on knee joints than wearing foot-stabilizing walking shoes or clogs.

Flip-flops and a flexible walking shoe were also better choices for minimizing impact to the knees during normal walking.

The researchers determined this by assessing a standard measure of knee joint impact, known as knee load.

"Knee loads play an important role in the progression of knee osteoarthritis," researcher Najia Shakoor, MD, of Rush Medical College, says in a news release. "Shoes have traditionally been engineered to provide foot comfort and little previous attention has been directed to the effects that shoes may have on loading of osteoarthritic knees."

She notes that flat, flexible shoes were best for minimizing the impact on knee joints.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Boston.

Impact of Shoes on Osteoarthritis
According to the Arthritis Foundation, 21 million Americans have osteoarthritis, a chronic disease in which the cartilage that serves as a shock absorber in the joints is broken down over time.

Also known as degenerative joint disease, osteoarthritis is a leading cause of disability among adults. Obesity, age, and joint overuse or injury are risk factors for the condition.

In a 2006 study with a similar design, Shakoor and colleagues reported that going barefoot put less stress on knee joints than wearing everyday walking shoes.

In their latest study, the researchers examined knee loads among 13 women and three men (average age 56 years) with knee osteoarthritis while they were barefoot, and then while they wore a popular brand of clogs, a foot stabilizing walking shoe, a flat, flexible walking shoe, and flip-flops.

Compared to walking barefoot, the clogs and foot-stabilizing walking shoes were associated with significantly higher knee loading.

"These results highlight the importance of re-evaluating the design of modern day shoes in terms of their effects on knee loads and knee osteoarthritis," the researchers write.

More Study Needed
Rheumatologist Dennis Boulware, MD, says he was surprised by the finding that shoes that are good for ailing feet may not be good for ailing knees.

"This does make me a bit concerned about advising patients about certain types of footwear," he says. "I will certainly pay more attention to knee complaints when I put someone in [foot-stabilizing] shoes for foot problems."

Boulware, who is chief of rheumatology for Kaiser Permanente, Honolulu, adds that larger studies are needed to confirm the findings.

"I am somewhat skeptical because of the small size of the study," he says. "But this is clearly something we need to know more about."

CBS News, 11/08/07

Shoe Parties for Time-Pressed Working Moms

Sleek patent-leather pumps, chunky-heeled metallics and we-want-them-now round-toed houndstooth wedges were artfully arranged, two by two, on a Friday evening in a living room.

The buyers at Soles by NioShe, a traveling footwear party, squealed as their eyes took in everything from satin ballet flats to copper, round-toe T-straps.

"I could care less about clothes, but there is something about ... (footwear)," said Dee Greene-Hill, just moments before entrepreneurs Shelly Johnson and Nioka Biggs-Wyatt got things started.

Games, tips and discounts

A typical Soles by NioShe party looks like it could be in an upscale boutique - so many stores in Center City these days are set up to resemble family rooms - but the scent of frying chicken drummettes downstairs makes it feel as if you are at a friend's house.

This party is at Felicia El's home. El, 38, is a legal secretary and is friends with Johnson through a mutual acquaintance. If the party brings in more than $300, El gets a free pair.

It takes about 20 minutes for the women, a group of mostly married professionals, to get settled. There are games, such as one where Biggs-Wyatt holds up a card and the women scream out a well-known brand. And from the moment the guests walk in the door, no one can say the "S" word (which is why Greene-Hill couldn't yell out her passion). If they do, they lose their chance to win a discount.

Before the shopping starts, Biggs-Wyatt gives a fall mini-trend report. Navy blue pumps are going to be big, she says, and every woman should have a pair of sexy metallics. Other advice: Hippy women should stay away from stilettos. "Not enough support," Biggs-Wyatt said as the women nod their heads in agreement.

Then the real event begins. Claire Johnson, 56, of Southwest Philadelphia, can't resist trying on a pair of metallics while Takiyah Payne, 24, has a hard time choosing between brown espadrilles and the houndstooth round toes. She eventually decided on the espadrilles.

"Oh, I know I have a problem," Payne says, laughing.

And what woman doesn't? When it comes to - whew - shoes.

"I can't believe I haven't heard about more of these (shoeparties) happening in other places," Greene-Hill said.

She probably will soon. More and more, working women are supplementing their salaries by becoming on-the-side fashion entrepreneurs.

Cash on the side

This is by no means a new phenomenon. Long before Avon came knocking, Madame C.J. Walker sold hair-straightening products to add to earnings as a maid.

But nowadays, women aren't limiting themselves to peddling established brands like Mary Kay cosmetics or clothing from the direct mail company Doncaster.

They are now selling everything from jewelry (Philadelphia-based company Zivile Art by Zivile Pupinyte) to pocketbooks (B's Purses, started in 2004 by stay-at-home mom Susan Gullien) to plus-size clothing (Philadelphia entrepreneur Danielle Charles recently opened PHAZE in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.).

Sometimes the women design the pieces themselves. Other times, they sell items wholesale. Either way, the businesswomen offer a service they enjoy, and busy working moms cut down on the time-consuming hunt-and-peck shopping process.

Moms Biggs-Wyatt, 31, and Johnson, 36, met at Philadelphia University eight years ago. Soles by NioShe - a combination of the women's first names - spans three states. Biggs-Wyatt, who lives in Blackwood, recruits business in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while Johnson, who lives in Bear, Del., concentrates on her own state.

"I wanted to open my own boutique," Biggs-Wyatt said. "But the cost of the overhead was just too much. This is the next best thing."

"We saw this as a business opportunity," Johnson said. "We love it, and our friends love it, so why not?"

A business venture

Biggs-Wyatt, who graduated with degrees in fashion and apparel, ventured out on her own in May 2005, after working as a technical designer at QVC in West Chester, Pa. Armed with the contacts she made there, she contacted several companies and spent $1,000 of her own money on merchandise. Stilettos, pumps and T-straps, she said, were her secret passion.

For her one megasale, Biggs-Wyatt rented out a room at the Wyndham in Center City, Pa., printing out flyers and giving them to friends. More than 200 people came.

"I was there for five hours, and I made $6,000," she said. But further retail dreams were put on hold for nearly a year after she got pregnant with son Xavier.

In April 2006, Biggs-Wyatt decided to sell through the season instead of just at one event. She soon realized that lugging boxes of merchandise door to door was too much for one woman to handle. So she asked her friend Johnson to help.

Johnson had worked in marketing for J.P. Morgan Chase, and her son Myles was 18-months-old.

The duo hosted their first show together at Bethany Baptist church in Lindenwold. The show didn't go as well as they planned.

"I think it was the presentation," Johnson said. "... We didn't put them out in pairs. Display is so important."

At the next party, in a home in Delaware, however, they made close to $1,000.

Now the two women visit footwear markets in New York twice a year, where they order boxes of merchandise the same way free-standing stores do.

And twice a week, the women load up their SUVs with boxes of favorite mall brands: Steve Madden, Chinese Laundry and Two Lips. Prices are reasonable, ranging from $25 to $60. The women usually split close to $1,000 a show.

It takes an hour for Biggs-Wyatt and Johnson to set up displays at the churches, offices or homes that call them for parties. Once they are ready - boxes marked sizes 6 to 11 neatly tucked under tables - they wait for women to trickle in: oohing and aahing followed by charging and check-writing.

Source: Savannah Morning News, 10/30/07

Clear shoe box

Taking sneaker obsessions to another level, this Clear Box, by Japanese designer Neo, is actually useful when choosing which shoes to wear and good-looking—well, depending on which pair you have in there.

Perfect for those who have a grip of sneakers or even just to display a prized possession, we think the plexiglass box would make for good stock packaging for a sneaker company looking to up the ante.

Source: Cool Hunting, 10/25/07

Crocs get the boot at some schools

First there was the flip-flop flap. Now comes the Croc crackdown.

Crocs, those ubiquitous, Swiss-cheese-like clogs, are joining their flimsier flip-flop cousins on school "do not wear" lists around the USA.

More public schools are instituting stricter, parochial-style dress codes, and Crocs, along with generic sandals and flip-flops, aren't fitting the closed-toe, closed-heel criteria.

Another trend, Hollywood's obsession with hats, is also proving scarce: Many schools don't allow headgear, including hoodies and even headbands, to be worn indoors.

In some elementary schools, Crocs are a safety question. Though most schools are escalator-free — in the past year, the Croc-escalator cocktail has been blamed for injuring the toes of a few children — administrators say monkey bars and Crocs, as well as sandals and flip-flops, don't mix.

Likewise hallways and Heelys, the popular roller sneaker, which has skated out of schools from New Mexico to Alabama. (Roller shoes put 1,600 people, most of them children, in the hospital last year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.) At Kingston Elementary in Virginia Beach, students can wear them as long as the wheels are locked in; if the wheels emerge, the school calls home.

It's not "totally unreasonable" for schools to be sensitive that some clothing poses safety concerns, says Lisa Soronen, senior staff attorney with the National School Boards Association. "Schools are sued not infrequently for a variety of injuries that happen to students" on school property. "I've tried on Crocs. They're not made for your individual foot. These aren't custom shoes here."

Whether a school bans an article of clothing is "really a local decision," says Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "But I always argue that these things have to be done in a very reasonable and responsible way," and consistently, so that, for instance, no Crocs for students also means no Crocs for teachers.

Though most parents support a Heelys ban, some see the Croc crackdown as, well, a crock. "I don't think they're a problem," says Amy Ulibarri, whose daughter, Contessa, 6, threw herself on the floor in a screaming fit last year when forced to trade her beloved pink Crocs for sneakers. Hers is "one flat school," says Ulibarri, 27, a stay-at-home mother in Ely, Nev. "They can't even trip downstairs." Besides, she says, little kids are in general are uncoordinated: "They trip on shoestrings."

The company agrees. "I don't see them posing a safety issue as long as parents are buying the right size," says spokeswoman Tia Mattson, who says the Niwot, Colo.-based company has received few inquiries regarding Croc challenges in schools. (Mattson says Crocs suffers from a public-relations problem: The company has become synonymous with glorified garden shoes, and yet they sell an increasingly wide range of footwear, some of which is playground-friendly.)

Over at CafeMom, a mom-centric social-networking site, there have been nearly 500 posts on the debate over classic Crocs since July, says senior community manager Elizabeth Smith.

"There's not a lot of in-between — a lot of moms love them, then a lot of moms hate them, so the passions run deep." They're either comfortable, easy-to-clean, galoshes-like godsends or aesthetically challenged sartorial scourges, depending on whom you ask.

In Washington County, Ala., Leroy High students love them — nearly every one owns a pair, says principal Larry Massey. So he's showing a little sympathy and drawing out the break-up process. Banned for this fall as part of a closed-shoe-only policy — "I think it was because they were too ugly," Massey jokes — Massey gave students a goodbye grace period during the first quarter: Crocs creep back in the closet starting Friday. "We'll have a memorial service," he says.

Source: USA Today, 10/18/07

Seeking a Joint Effort for Greener Athletic Shoes

Jeffrey B. Swartz, the chief executive of Timberland, is frustrated.

He has seen makers of athletic shoes and outdoor wear — companies like Nike, Patagonia and certainly his own — act in concert to end child labor practices. And he has seen these companies use more organic cotton and use solar and wind energy.

But he has yet to see an industrywide effort to adopt the greenest methods for making, transporting and selling shoes. Green technologies are readily available, he says, but shoe companies have been excruciatingly slow to adopt them.

The main reason, he says he suspects, is that while most of the industry’s chiefs really do care about environmental issues, they are indulging in parallel play.

In a recent conversation, Mr. Swartz elaborated on why his industry will make environmental progress only if its chiefs agree to an industry standard for greenness and use their combined clout to get their suppliers to meet it.

Following are excerpts:

Q. Shoe companies easily collaborate on human rights issues, so why are they having such a hard time with environmental matters?

A. When you are talking about child labor laws, for example, people from the manufacturing team or from the social enterprise team take charge. And at that level there are wonderful informal networks among the companies.

It’s not Timberland and Patagonia collaborating, its Betsy from Timberland networking with Casey from Patagonia. Its activist to activist, not company to company. The companies are sponsors, but not originators of ideas.

That works for some environmental issues, too, of course. Nike developed a way to gasify waste leather for use as fuel, and someone from their team told someone from our team about it.

We’re putting gasification online at our Dominican Republic plant.

Q. Why wouldn’t that same approach work for adopting other environmentally sound practices?

A. Very few of us do our own manufacturing. Probably 90 percent of the footwear sold in America is made by the same five or six global manufacturers, who are operating out of huge manufacturing complexes that serve many clients.

We all probably use Pou Chen in China, for example. So sure, I can go to the head of Pou Chen and say, “Why don’t you try wind energy? I use it in the Dominican Republic.”

But then another customer says, “No, try solar energy.” We need to go as an industry and say, “We’ll invest with you to explore greener energy.”

And lower-level people cannot make that kind of commitment.

Q. In other words, you should band together to apply pressure on suppliers. But aren’t your customers — the retailers and the consumers — applying that kind of pressure on all of you to provide “green” shoes?

A. Not really. We ask people who just bought a pair of shoes how they made their choice, and the immediate answer is that the price was right, or they liked the look or the color.

Ask people what they know about the human rights or environmental track record of the brand they just bought, and they walk away. People buy on the basis of product attributes, not brand attributes.

Q. But why must they make that choice? Wouldn’t consumers flock to an environmentally friendly shoe that is also fashionable and inexpensive?

A. They wouldn’t avoid it. But as an industry, we position our products as more waterproof, or worn by the hottest celebrities. We haven’t positioned environmental attributes as aspirational, as qualities that will make people who buy our shoes feel good about themselves.

The result is that people may think of green shoes as things that they should buy, but not necessarily as things that they want to buy.

It’s like community service — people have come to think of that as something that judges force celebrity drunk drivers to do, not as something that people joyfully embrace. It’s all couched in terms of guilt and penalties, not in terms of aspirational activities.

Q. But how could even a coordinated collaboration of shoe industry chiefs break through such strong psychological resistance?

A. If the industry breaks through its own resistance, the consumers will follow.

We could start by developing industrywide standards. Timberland has begun putting green index tags on some of our shoes, which show how they rate in terms of their impact on the environment. We hope to eventually have tags on all of them. And we hope other shoe companies will adopt similar tags.

If we all make the tags bold and colorful, shoppers will notice them. And if they are on all the shoe boxes, it will become automatic for shoppers to compare green tags among brands, just like they compare price and color.

And then they’ll notice which boxes aren’t labeled, and they’ll ask the sales associate why not. The sales associate will tell the store’s buyer, who will call the manufacturer and ask for labeling, just like they now call and insist on colors or styles.

When that happens, we’ll all be fighting to have the best tag. No car company wants to be known for the worst gas mileage, and no shoe company will want to be known for the least environmentally friendly shoes.

Q. So why don’t you get the collaborative ball rolling, and convene a meeting of your chief executive counterparts?

A. Good question. Our competitors are so much bigger than we are, and that makes me reluctant to place the call. But maybe I really should do less lamenting that C.E.O.’s aren’t getting together, and pick up a phone. Maybe that’s the answer: I should lament less and dial more.

Source: New York Times, 9/29/07