Tango Shoe Divas

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.