Tango Shoe Divas

I decided a couple of months ago to give Tango Wear one more try after a lukewarm first experience last year.

I have mentioned before that one thing that bothers me about most of the tango shoe makers is that they usually only have a couple of options for those of us who can’t wear the 3.5 and 4″ stilettos, and then usually only red or black.

This gets very boring for your wardrobe.

SInce I saw that Tango-wear had a knock off version of my very comfortable black Neotangos, I somewhat reluctantly decided to give them one more try.

I went through a lengthy discussion with them about my foot size and what was didn’t fit in the last 2 pairs I had and thought we had everything sorted out so I did some color adaptions in Photoshop of 2 models, emailed them for confirmation and sent them my very hard earned cash.

Granted, they did actually get the shoes in to me in the specified 4-5 weeks they claim on the website, and the purple pair fit at least adequately….but the other pair is a complete disaster, and they refuse to take any responsibility or attempt to fix the mistake.

The purple pair:

This pair was a little wider than I thought it would be, seeing that they seemed so familiar with the neotango model I have. The heel cage is a little low (and my friend who also ordered a pair of shoes with a non-standard heel cage ended up with the same issue). I will never love these shoes. The strange heel cage height makes them not very comfortable and the fact that i had to add extra padding in to make up for the width isn’t helping as there was already double padding in the shoe (which I requested).

Now for the disaster… The pink and black shoes. These were supposed to be made to a picture specification I sent and had approved. It was supposed to be a black suede shoe with pink accents. Black suede base, black heel, black strap…pink toe box piping and heel cage accent. It came with the heel and strap the wrong color and even more unforgivably, TOO SMALL. I can barely squeeze my foot in there, even after switching the insole padding out to something thinner. These were supposed to be long haul work shoes, black with pink accents…not a pink and black shoe, and I need the double padding so I can’t remove it.

In the photos, you can see how my big toe is quite over the edge, even with no weight on them, and yes, I pretty much have to cram my feet in there, they are so narrow, and completely unsellable as I have small feet to begin with and these are even smaller.

 They are now even more unsellable as I started thinking “I know how to sew on leather” and they are only connected by a little tab, maybe I could put a wider one in there…this is how much extra space it needs to fit my chubby little foot. I really need a forgiving shoe person at this point if I am going to attempt to salvage this situation. I am so unhappy. I sold almost all my nice shoes…for this. And so my original opinion still holds after this very expensive and unhappy lesson- buy nice shoes from a well known maker whose shoe sizing is dependable.

UPDATE—- 9-12-08- I found a shoe person who can help me put them back they way I got them. Guess these will go up on the auction block when he gets that new tab in. And I found out Neotango is going to start doing more of their new styles in the 6.5cm heel. So that’s one silver lining to this big dark cloud. I’ll take Neotango any day.

Ahhhhh.  The host did something a little bit wonky and in trying to fix it I made it 1000 times worse!  Hey, I am a dancer and a fluffy, fashonista, shoe addict, not a sys-admin or programmer.  But I am crossing my fingers, I seem to have fixed things (without prostrating myself before the various computer geeks that I know!).  I have 8 (!) installations of the Word Press software trying to fix things and I will hopefully not break anything else trying to clean up (not cleaning up is what caused the last catastrophe).  I know a lot more about the mysql storage structure now so hopefully any damage I do will be easily restored this time.  For all of you that have stuck with me, I’m glad you are still here and I have a couple of new rants and raves forthcoming, as soon as I know that everything is running right!

I don’t have any great shoe pr0n but I have a picture that one of my shoe sisters snapped of my shoe wall during a recent party… It’s blurry, but amusing…

I got these NEotango’s last year and they felt GREAT on carpet…not so great once I got them on a real floor (funny how that 4″ heel feels better on carpet- innit?). Finally, my toes were hurting too much so I found a friend who knew a cobbler who could cut them down because they were just sitting around. So, after an extra $15 having them cut they are now about 3/16″ lower (YAY!). The only bad thing is they had rock solod balance before, now the heel is only “fair” balance. They certainly aren’t any worse in balance than some of my other dance shoes, but I sure do miss the stability they had.

Lesson learned: Don’t buy a pair of really expensive shoes if the heel is too high and then have it cut down (unless the balance is already off). I’d never do it to another pair of Neo’s or especially CiF since their heels are made to be balanced just the way they are.

I recently took my second favorite pair of CiF to have the heel tips replaced. Given the frequency with which I have to have these replaced on my shoes I was beginning to regard this process more like a dental cleaning than major surgery. I am a major heel dragger (in a good embellishment sort of way), and the tip on a pair of stilettos sometimes only lasts me 4 wearings, so my shoe guy and I have gotten very close. I needed to have some more complex alterations done so I decided to try someone that came very highly recommended by one of my favorite fellow Shoe Divas.

Big Mistake.

I had the poor judgement, or the positive among you might say trust and faith, to not closely inspect the shoes until I got to the car, where I opened the bag. I don’t want to come off as an overly emotional, weepy woman, but I can honestly say that I was holding back tears when I saw them. I was divided between going back in and screaming at him in all my womanly fury or going home quietly. In the end I chose my usual path of non-confrontation – the damage was already done, what good would losing my temper do? But as I drove, I got more and more upset.

This is what I got back:

EEEEEEEEKKKK!

The other one isn’t quite as bad (maybe half the length) but what really got me is that he managed to crack BOTH of them. One is bad, two is unforgivable…

The truly ironic (hopefully not in an Alanis Morissette sort of way) part of the story is that these heels didn’t need to be done all that badly, but I was headed in to the shoe guy already and I figured I would take these in and get them done before I over wore the tips and marred the perfect finish on the heels, as I am prone to do… And I got this.

SIGH.

So I guess the moral of the story is if you find a shoe guy that you love, don’t let him go. And if you are local, stay away from “John’s Shoe Repair” at 3007 H Clairemont DR, San Diego, no matter what my Russian friend says…