Tango Shoe Divas

After reading all the mixed reviews of Tango Wear, and failing to find any shoes to fit my extra-wide feet on the festival circuit, I decided to cautiously order my first ‘dressy’ pair of stilettos from them.  I am a tight-fisted person by nature, and a full-time student to boot, so it was not a decision to make lightly:  this investment has to last me a while.  But my shabby $50 practice pair was worn to a shred, and I had fallen in love with the lattice-backed “Sabrina.”  I hoped that the vamp would be high enough to wrap around and hold in my unusually broad toe girth.

Sabrina

I had some trouble with the measuring process; the instructions describe how to trace one’s foot on a flat piece of paper, then measure from heel to toe.  I consistently got two separate readings, with about half a centimeter’s difference.  I traced and retraced, measured and re-measured.  Finally I chose a happy medium, and added a meticulous verbal description of how I’m an 8 or 8.5 in length, but often have to buy size 9 shoes that are too long for me in order to obtain the proper width, so that I’m not entirely sure which size I actually am.  I also wanted a tapering “pencil” heel rather than the one pictured.  I asked for confirmation, whether my directions were clear, and got ready to wait.

I was prepared to wait a long time, having read the many Shoe Diva testimonials; but in the meantime my old Very Fine shoes were growing so battered that I was afraid they might give way in a good drag, and leave me scraping my foot against the floor.

old Very Fine pair

I cajoled my reluctant Italian shoe doctor into gluing patches onto my failing dance shoes, sent periodic e-mails to the sales team in Argentina, and desperately hoped the delivery time would be closer to the promised 4-6 weeks than the 2-3 months experienced by fellow Divas.  And miraculously—it was!  I received the shoes almost exactly 6 weeks after I ordered them, with pencil heel exactly as specified.  But do they fit?  Mostly.

It seems that Tango Wear sent me a size 9, and even so they’re a wee bit too narrow (the picture shows how my foot hangs out just a bit over the top of the vamp), and are also slightly too long so that the jaunty little heel cage gapes at the back, unless I’m fully flexing my foot.  Also I’ve found that my foot occasionally pulls right out of the vamp mid-tanda, which necessitates an inelegant pause for readjustment.  So—would I order from them again?  Probably.  I’d specify a half-size smaller, a vamp style that’s just a little higher, and perhaps a cross-strap or a t-strap to keep the vamp in place more securely.  They are also much less stable than my old pair, but this is undoubtedly related to the fact that they’re substantially higher.

Someday if I can 1) afford, and 2) find a wide-enough pair of Comme il Fauts, then I’m curious to see how their legendary quality and balance measures up.  In the meantime, my new Tango Wear shoes are fulfilling what I need them to now:  they are dressy enough that I no longer feel like a vagabond tanguera, yet basic and versatile enough to go with most of my outfits.  And the latticed heel is still cute, even if slightly baggy.  Until a more lucrative period of my life, they’re doing the trick.

I just received these shoes from Marlene Taconeando – they are high and I haven’t worn them yet but they fit nicely and are comfortable – she was very helpful considering I bought by email (they don’t have an online store) I’m looking forward to wearing them soon. Fern

Here is my long awaited post. I will try to keep it short (for me) on words and sweet…

I joined Greta Flora’s Facebook group, where they have a running list of limited edition shoes they have available and saw a really great pair of shoes that I instantly loved.

These were the shoes I saw:

I saw them about 2 days before I got my first pair of Greta’s (in October) and as soon as I saw that the size was right, I wrote to find out if they were still available. They were not, but the shoes I got from Kathleen were great. Greta Flora is a respectable company…so I asked if they could make another pair for me, in a slightly lower heel. They said yes.

After almost 3 months of waiting, this is what arrived at my doorstep…

And if I loved the UT Longhorns (I hate football), and orange patent leather, these would be great but did I mention just ow much extra work I had to do to save up for these???

They do fit, and are very well made. The flower is HUGE (but not the red suede I loved on the other pair)…and they do have the saffron foot bed and straps I wanted…but all that other PUMPKIN color…OYE!

So, I love Greta Flora. They couldn’t even make all orange look truly horrible. I will still buy their shoes (from places I can return to). But I am seriously unhappy that they didn’t tell me they were out of the reddish reptile material for the heel….

Now what to do? Tell me readers…do I leave them alone, and glory in their orange-ness?

Do I make some effort to at least change the flower color? (Patent can’t be changed.)

Stone the back and flower with Swarovski?

Combination of any of those?

Comment away!

This past year was the year I decided to go back to wearing open toe shoes. I don’t know why I ever stopped, except that needing lower heels, I never had many choices about the shape of the front of the shoe before and didn’t really think that much about it until late 2008.

I am seriously hoping that 2010 will see some changes and  hopefully more tango shoe manufacturer’s broaden their somewhat narrow outlook of this aspect: “low heel shoes means closed/peep toe”.

I am glad Greta Flora broke this mold- and good on them. I know a couple of other brands like Tango Brujo, Nueva Epoca and Darcos also make pretty, open toe, lower heeled shoes so good for them too!

In 2009, I was determined to decrease my foot pain so I ruthlessly sold most of my higher heels and switched to lower ones. Unfortunately, this didn’t really help much and I was convinced it was just about time to give up dancing before I crippled myself, but got a chance to pre-order some low heeled open toe Greta Flora shoes from Kathleen at Diva-Boutique. (She’s great by the way.) The shoes were great; my feet mostly forgave me and now I can continue dancing.

So I scrimped and saved, taught private lessons on my days off, did special orders when I didn’t really want to and sold ALL but one pair of the shoes I had previously bought  (9 pairs), including my 2 pairs of Comme Il Faut, I’m sad to say, and have been slowly replacing them when I get a chance and find something that will work.

Here’s what I have now:

There are 2 pairs of Greta Flora, soon to be 3- a special order (oh no) directly from them that hasn’t gone well (what a surprise). There is one pair of Nueva Epoca, a pair of Darcos and a new pair of Jorge Nel’s. The raspberry pair (middle of the second pic) I bought in 2008, sort of a harbinger of things to come.

Now  a quick review.

Greta Flora- Overall, I love Greta Flora. The neutral pair required about 1 hr break in. Theya re very soft, shape to my toes and I can dance for hours in them. The black/red pair has potential but is a bit stiffer and tighter, I’ll probably need to have them stretched a little. The 3rd pair (more later as it will need it’s own story) is on its way from Argentina.

Nueva Epoca-The model I got is “Palma”. Carmen at Carmen’s Dance shoes has them on sale right now. Apparently the price is going up so I don’t know that I’ll buy them again with the new pricing, but if you can catch a sale, Nueva Epoca is good. Carmen is easy to deal with and returns are simple. They are flexible, comfortable, quality materials that aren’t stiff and are nicely made. I had 1/4″ taken off the Palma model to bring them closer to 2.5″ .They are actually 3″ up the back and not the 2 3/4″ listed. (The higher models have the height up the back posted so I am not sure why the lower heel ones don’t do the same.)

The Palma model I got is actually metallic purple (not the posted patent) with a iridescent pleated satin front- quite pretty! Lined in pale gold. I wore them for New Years and didn’t even bung up the metallics.

Jorge Nel- I got the raspberry pair in 2008 and added some trim (can’t help myself on that). They are comfortable, with a 3″ heel (up the back). They’re also rock solid stable.

So I special ordered the purple pair (yes, purple is my “black”) with the silver and black  star back…yes…note to self…stop doing that in 2010…The purple pair turned out nice on the surface. The suede is nice and the lining is soft, but he made them about 1/2 size too long for my foot (and he measured my feet himself!) and I just can’t get used to his heel placements (too far towards my heel). Overall- I’d only continue to get Jorge Nel shoes at a festival, where you can get a bit better price and try them out first.

Once bitten on special order shoes, twice shy, but 3 times I’m just dumb! So my resolution for 2010 is to NOT special order shoes from ANYONE and only buy from people whom I can return an item that doesn’t fit properly.

Hi not sure if I have up-loaded picture correctly! Just want to say what a neat site!

These are my silver shoes just arrived from Tango Wear, I love them, but they took 3 months to get to Wellington, New Zealand. I had to arrange a shoe sitter at my house to receive them as the day they arrive I was off on holiday. I’ve heard of baby sitters, and house sitters, but never had to get a shoe sitter before! cheers Fern

I put myself “on the wagon” from shoe buying after my trip to Denver (more on THAT later )! One of my rationalizations for my insane shoe habit was that, since I have a young child, I didn’t get to travel a do the festival circuit like my friends. But then THIS year, with my son in 1st grade, I decided it was time for me to have a different kind of tango treat… so I went to Denver for the Labor Day fest… and then to San Fran just a month later… So now I have two competing tango loves! Shoes AND travel. Thankfully BsAs is still off the table for a couple of years… so at least I don’t have to worry about saving up for THAT!

But the shoe sellers are determined to make me spend my money! First Tango Wear, then Darcos and now Tango Wear again! And I can say that I am sorely tempted… on both fronts… and there is also this pair of CiF… but I am not ready to talk about that yet…

…see the temptation

Hello dear tangoshoesdivas!
I guess I’m one of you now
I’m dancing only six months now but I’m absolutely hooked on tango shoes.
My first experience with tango shoes occurred in Sitges tango festival this year when I saw Comme il faut selling their shoes. There I saw these gorgeous shoes, ones I always dreamt of…. They were absolutely stunning, I tried them on, they fit perfectly and look soooo sexy on my legs. I payed 140 EUR without even thinking that I never spent that amount of money on one pair of shoes. I put them on immediately and once I had them on me, someone invited me to dance. After 5 seconds I realized I can not dance with them ((( I guess the heel was too high for me (9 cm) and the open cage didn’t helped either. Off course I couldn’t give them back because I already worn them on a floor. So now I use them as a show off shoes when my friends come to visit me and that’s all.
Well, here comes my question: Do you think I will use them someday, maybe when I will be more stable and secure my self on the dance floor? Maybe more experience will help me? Or I’m just kidding my self and I’m doomed to wear low heels forever. I just have to mention that I don’t have any special problems with my feet (knock on wood…). Anyone?

It was a seven month quest, but I finally got myself squared away with a pair of low heeled, (non-boring) neutral shoes.

These are from Greta Flora via Diva-Boutique and I wish I’d had them for Tangofest.

I love them. They are very well made. The materials are soft and not too stiff (unlike I find Comme Il Faut texture leathers). Greta Flora does half sizes on request though these are a regular size 36. Kathleen was able to give flower placement and color options as she adds them herself upon purchase.  The lining is excellent and the heel is lined in soft suede. The padding is average and about the only thing I could wish for a little more of (as usual).

These are a silvery taupe lizard texture suede with light cream accent and flower on the heel (my choice of placement). The heel measures a comfortable 2.5″ up the back (the 5.5cm heel).

Overall, I am very pleased and happy to recommend Greta Flora. Sizing runs similar to Comme Il Faut or Neotango for those who are concerned. Maybe just a hair wider in cut to similar band sandals for CiF, but similar in footbed length (size 36 is 9.25″ insole length).  CiF size 36 band sandals often bind my toes unless it is suede or velvet, but these were very nice in cut- not binding at all.

Yay for Greta and Flora!

Next step…a colorful pair of low heels!

***Update: I just wore these out to a milonga last night and despite the fact that they have less padding than I would like, this is the first time in quite literally years, that I have come home and NOT felt the need to ice my feet (though I did it anyway).****

Hello, by accident I found a website called www.infodanceshoes.com ( advertised by google), which sells Darcos shoes, but not with their label on them – the insole is blanc . They also apparently use Darcos’ original pics. As they are much cheaper as on the Darcos website ( I would have them sent to Germany) I am of course tempted. But I am not at all sure wether I can trust this website or wether is is just a fake. Apparently I could pay with paypal, so this might be safe ,but the whole thing remains a bit strange to me. They also give the Darcos shop address in Siupacha 259 as their address without refering to Darcos. Has anybody of you made any experiences with them before? I would be glad for an answer