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 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

My first encounter with the “tango shoe divas” was in early May. After reading BASTE’s Lukewarm Shoes and Shoe Disasters (September 2008), I wasn’t sure that I had any confidence in Tango-Wear at all.
Our fellow tango shoe divas had warned us, many times, about Tango-Wear: the fit is wrong, the colors are off, and the shipment is always late.
Then, I noticed that Tango-Wear was running a special “saving the world’s economic crisis” promotion – ”Order 3 or more pairs by 5/31/09, and we will ship the shoes for free!”. I was tempted… I thought maybe I should step in and help since their business was hurting so badly plus I would save $47.00 on shipping for three pairs.
So I gave in. After hours of browsing and sketching, I decided to order three pairs in the following styles with my color combinations:
Note: My order for heel is 6cm, thin flared with leather sole.
1. Mallory

I changed the colors to deep red suede w/ black villone
2. Orquidea

Instead of black, I changed the colors to dark purple suede w/ purple satin for heel/strap
3. Buenos Aires Purple

I changed the color to green metallic leather

I sent in my special request and they replied that it would not be a problem or cost extra to change the colors/materials. Right after I placed my order, I got an email requesting me to RESEND my foot measurement because they were concerned the # for circumference was too narrow. Sure enough, I was off by 0.5cm. I was very impressed with their responsiveness. Then, I just needed to wait…

I checked in w/ them once every two weeks, and finally on 7/2, I got an email from Jose saying my shoes were flying across the Atlantic… I was so ready to meet my new friends!!!
The order was placed on 5/19 and I received my shipment on 7/3.
Here they are:

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.

I am considering several firsts: buying tango shoes on the Internet, trying a platform, and designing my own shoes.

I have some limitations. My feet have fallen arches and joint pain in the big toes as a result. (Any favorites among metatarsal pads?) My best discovery is gel toe spacers. I wear flat shoes with orthotics to work and put the orthotics in my Sansha sneakers for other dancing (contra, swing). I’m only 27 and I want to keep my feet from getting worse! I have been dancing tango in low heeled cross-strap Werner Kerns, but I’m feeling the beautiful shoes calling my name… besides, I recently tried my first pair of hard leather soles for tango and I can never go back! So, new shoes are in order and I’m not finding the right selection, even in New York.

I had Tango Wear recommended by a friend of mine and I love all the options. I’ve narrowed it down to several styles but the color choices are daunting. I want to go beyond black, but I’m not fond of the stereotypical red-black combination. I want purple-green, turquoise-orange, silver-black (not all on the same shoe). Am I crazy? I need your input.

Here are the STYLES I’m considering. Because of my foot issues, I’ve ruled out sandal toes. It’s too risky without being able to try them on. A full heel cage gives me needed stability. I’m sticking to a heel under 3″; I’m happy about the 6cm option! Probably a .5cm platform so my toes can still flex. Preferences on heel styles? Tango Wear offers flared and straight. I’m inclined to go with the flared for stability, but do you think the straight would look better on any of these models?

The fun ones: (remember, I’m coming from plain black Werner Kern ballroom shoes)

Under Baires: I love the strap across the heel look.

Eduviges: I love this heel cage even more, but it only comes in a 7.5cm heel.

The safeties:

Alfonsina: the stable cross-strap design

Or Aroma de Mujer

Or Zigana

Tanguera for maximum coverage.

Or Marmolina:

The comfort shoe:

Sabrina: love the heel cage and it comes in 4.5, 5, and 5.5cm! They can make this a closed toe, right? Of course they can.

Now for the COLORS!! I haven’t emailed Tango Wear yet to find out what’s possible, so I’m using my imagination. Another important question: durability. I’ve read that the metallics don’t last long. How does suede wear? Does patent leather get scuffed beyond recognition? Will the silver dots on the black suede get rubbed off? Does satin just get dirty? I would like to mix textures: suede on patent, metallic on leather, etc.

For a neutral shoe (the safety):

Beige with gold

Animal!

Black satin with white polka dots, white or silver leather

Black suede with silver dots, silver leather

Black base with pink trim

For a fun shoe:

Metalized blue and orange. It’s not featured on their page, but they must have a regular blue leather I could use as a base, right? The orange is for accents.

Various combinations of black and purple. Add green trim for contrast? Probably for the Sabrina, since the low heel is purple.

Since it takes so long for Tango Wear to arrive, should I order one to try it out, or go for all three at once? If I order now, I might get them by Christmas!

Marguerite

Marguerite writes:

I would like the opinions and expertise of the divas on an important issue: PLATFORMS.
I’m looking to buy my first pair of platforms, possibly from Tango Wear. Pros, cons, preferred height, flexibility, stability?

I have a lot to say about platforms, but I am short on time so I will be brief. I like them. I really like the ones I just got from Tango Wear, but they were kind of a PITA to deal with. Definitely read my post about my most recent pair, before ordering. If you are concerned about flexibility, get the .5 cm platform, wrapped in suede or a soft leather. Patent wrapped platforms will be less flexible (I have a pair like that that I hate – I call them the Frankenstein Shoes). They also offer a 1 cm platform (which is what you find everywhere else, like Tara Tango) but I currently love the .5 cm as a compromise between flexibility and padding. I don’t really like Tango Wear’s added ball of foot padding, I find that the platform takes care of it and lasts longer… That’s all I can say for now, I have to go back to cutting drywall out of my bathroom. I’d MUCH rather be talking about tango shoes!

(I’m sorry, I really didn’t intend for the title to rhyme, but now I can’t bring myself to change it …)

Hello! This is my introductory post on the main page of Tango Shoe Divas. I wrote a couple shoe reviews on my blog and was chastised for not sharing them here … so here I am! I am a budding shoe addict who came to tango from modern dance, where we don’t wear shoes at all. I blame tango for making me a shoe person.

I have a penchant for t-straps, low heels, dark colors, and flexible soles. In my slightly-over-a-year of dancing tango, I have collected six pairs of shoes: 2 Tango Wear, 1 Comme Il Faut, 1 Darcos, 1 Traspie and 1 pair of street shoes. I’ll start by gushing over my Tango Wear shoes.

(more…)

Continuing my theme of love hate relationship with buying shoes, today’s episode is about Tango-Wear. First the bad: mainly that we ordered on April 29th and we got them yesterday and one of the pairs from our order was not included (purposefully since we were starting to whine). 3-4 weeks shipping, my cute white hiney! Communication was a little wonky at times (several day email delays) but the people are always nice to deal with. They gave us a nice discount since we were ordering 6 pair and I of courseharangued them mercilessly with color combination changes, heel and platform changes… (and I feel like I got a lower heel than I asked for)

But in the end…

I LOOOOOOOVE my shoes.

You might recall that I narcissistically blogged (that IS redundant isn’t it) about designing this shoe all the way back in January (delayed gratification is good to keep me from buying 18 gazillion pairs of pretties…) The main goal was to try out the stiletto heel with a thin platform. So I was originally going to use “Atei” as the base (love the lines of this shoe and will probably get one more more…)

		I had trouble finding a color/heel combo that I liked. They unfortunately could not put the pretty avocado green heel onto other shoe models and didn’t have a metallic green stiletto. I didn’t want to bring any other colors (gold, black) into an already loud shoe. So in the end I used the “Green Diva” shoe as the base (so I could get the fun avocado colored heel).
Now to fix the color problem. I have a love hate relationship with metallics. They are beautiful and all, but they do NOT last (some of my favorite pairs have shown significant wear on the first day!). These shoes are not decorative. They work hard. I dance hard. I embellish, sweep, tap and trap. I do not want to be flinching every time I wear my pretties. So metallics are now for accent only.
So I asked for suede. I thought that this kind of dark, foresty suede would be nice with the avocado (and not show dirt as badly…) but we kind of went back and forth via email on several colors (did I mention that I make them work for their money?) So the shoes when they arrived were a bit of a surprise…

(more…)

I am designing my “dream team”. Much like the male version of this pastime I have to draw from existing players, but I can make my own combination that is much better than anything in existence. I now own 7 (?!?!) pair of CiF and while I love them, the recent festival reminded me that I need to get back to my platform roots. After 45+ hours of tango I was down to two pair of shoes that I could stand to put on my feet, my bestest go-to pair that are beginning to be a bit worn but are as comfortable as 3.5 inch heels can be, and my platform Tara “Alma” Pair but Tara doesn’t have anything that I really need (need of course being a subjective term when you own 20 pair of tango shoes…) I am a bit in love with these, and I don’t have a plain pair of cherry red shoes… I was hoping that she would be at the festival, once they were on my feet I might have not let them go, plus I wanted to try the memory foam thing out in person…

It still could happen, but in the meantime… I have been on the hunt for green… A desperate quest in fact. Before tango, green was my favorite color and I never red. And we all know what happens when we start tango. Very quickly a normal, colorful closet becomes frighteningly bichromatic, black and red, practically a uniform for the nascent tango dancer. My tango shoe collection, which really started to grow in my sixth year of tango when I was SO over red, has no such problem – the most represented color (not lack of color – which would be black) is red, but it is closely followed by blue, purple and pink. I admit, I do have one pair of green shoes but I don’t love, either in color, or fit and balance. And I occasionally see a pair of CiF that are ok but nothing that makes me want to throw down $190.

So it is time to try something different. So lets play Fantasy Footwear. Courtesy of Tango Wear

First the model:
This part is easy. I’ve had my eye on this style for a long time (pretty much since the model came out). I have one friend who ordered them and went back for a second color. What seals the deal is that they will put a platform on them. Comfort plus the look of a stiletto would make this tanguera absolutely ecstatic.

Now for the hard part, finding the perfect color combination!

For the suede, the first picture is the ideal (CiF of course – I am tempted to buy that pair, as they are gorgeous, but I really, really need less 4″ heels!) and the second is a color from a pair of Tango Wear shoes. I have emailed the first picture to them to see if they have something closer to the CiF color (they are very nice to communicate with).

If they have a different suede, then I think I want to go with the more classic green metallic in the first picture. But their suede combined with the second metallic could be more unique… I also have an inquiry in about whether I can get a metallic stiletto to match. Yum!

So that is today’s episode of “Fantasy Footwear” (and I think I need a new category for this game!). Anyone want to vote? Hmmmm. I might have to work on poll functionality!

It had been a really long time since Tango Wear released any new models, but sometime in the last week they added about 20 new styles (some of them ARE just new colors on old styles, but there are some novel design elements). Some people have had bad experiences with them (wrong sizes, difficult returns etc) but my experience has been essentially positive. They aren’t shoes that I love, but they are good solid shoes. You can read about them here, here, and here.

I bought my Tango Wear shoes when they were on sale and we did a big group order so we really saved on shipping (about $80 per pair after shipping) . I don’t know that I would order from them again unless I was getting a great deal, BUT I really think some of their new models are cute. The big temptation for me is that I can get a platform added, which is really good for long nights of dancing. I’ve been too much about the stilettos recently.

	I think this is my favorite of the new models. I really like the line of the ankle strap and the silver edging. Since it doesn’t have a stiletto heel it is likely that a platform can be added.
	I have a pair much like this in blue and black that is coming from an ebay buy. Really everyone is selling shoes from only a few manufacturers. It is just a matter of who you like dealing with.
	Case in point. This shoe has the same strap detail that I admired in the previous post from Raquel Shoes. (I like the single band toe better though). And what is up with the strange heel angle? I suspect it is a funky picture, because the shoes I have from Tango Wear do NOT have a backwards slanted heel. I hope this is not something new and strange they are doing, or a sign of marginal quality control.
	The strap through the heel style has been very popular on ebay (one of my friends bought two pair recently) so it is no surprise that this model has been added. I didn’t love the look of how the strap cut across my foot (of COURSE I tried hers on – great to have friends who wear the same size) but I like the rest of the design.
	This model is named “Lady Mate” which I think is a charming name for this green shoe. This is the same style as my BLUE H00KER shoes. They now offer them in red, green, black, black suede, and grape (I am not sure if the original Pink and Black version is still available, but you can ask for custom colors if you absolutely MUST have it)
	They are also making a version in pink leather and a thicker purple suede heel. Makes me tempted to try this shoe with a platform (and maybe a different color combo)
	I have been secretly coveting Animal, for quite some time (I have a collection of various “endangered species” shoes), but I like the more dramatic cutouts on this shoe. It’s a nice color of suede too.
	And lastly, the pair that I am most likely to buy, regardless of the comments byMiss Tango to this post. I’ve been really coveting polka dots recently, even if that does make me one of the “crazy people”… It wouldn’t be the first time someone called me that. This shoe with a platform would be a very good addition to my collection…