Tango Shoe Divas

Ever since the changes in Comme il faut (quality going downhill and prices going uphill) I have been on the hunt for a new source of shoe goodness. Lolo Gerard shoes fit my feet perfectly, but I don’t really like their styles. Neotango, on the other hand, has some lovely styles, but they never seem to fit my feet quite right. Tango-wear has some nice designs but I am not willing to buy shoes over the net. There  has to be something out there…

I decided to pop into Gretaflora with a friend about a month ago.  One of the pairs instantly grabbed my attention.  A strappy number in  graduating shades of blue. I tried it on and it fit like a glove – comfortable? Check. Well made? Check. Looks good? Check. No toes sticking out through the straps? Check.  But I really couldn’t justify buying another blue pair of shoes ‘If only I could get it in shades of pink and purple…’ , I said, thinking out loud. Greta, one of the two shop owners went out the back, and before I knew it, she had come back with  over a dozen rolls of leather under her arm – all different shades of pink and purple. Perfect! I got to choose my own colours.

I was so excited when I went to pick them up a few weeks later. Unfortunately when she presented them to me they were not quite right. The colour sequence of the 5 straps was meant to be  pink, pink, purple, purple, dark purple. unfortunately they had placed the dark purple strap between the two purple ones. Now I don’t mean to nit-pick , but it made the shoe look ‘wrong’. The girl was apologetic, and said that I didn’t have to take them if i didn’t want them, and that they would refund my deposit. I didn’t want the deposit back. What I did want was the shoes to be ‘right’. ‘OK , don’t worry about it. We’ll make another pair’, she said, which put a smile back on my face. Now all I had to do was wait another two weeks.

Well, I finally went in to pick them up on Tuesday, and this time they were perfect.

But wait – there’s more. As I was about to leave, I spotted a pair in the same style in a deep brown/coppery satin, with the signature gretaflora leather flower on the side of the heel cage sitting on the discount shelf. I picked it up and saw that it was in my size. I looked it over, to make sure that the quality was OK. I tried it on, just to make sure it fit well . Beautiful, comfortable, well made shoes are hard to turn down. Beautiful, comfortable, well made shoes at a discount are IRRESISTABLE. And I really was thinking of a brown colour for my next pair…

So naturally, I ended up walking out of the shop with exactly  what I wanted – and more!

p.s. Gretaflora does have a website, but the photos do not do them justice. The shoes are much more pretty ‘in person’

All of us have these lovely shoes, and when we take them out dancing we work them hard.  So a question for each of you: What do you do to take care of your shoes?

How do you clean them (inside and out)?
How do you protect them from excessive wear?