Shoes... and a truly genius tip.

I love shoes.. but like everyone else, I've been in a lot of unequal relationships with shoes.. you know.. one of you loves a lot more than the other...and sometimes the relationship breaks down entirely.  The shoe that fitted in the store... within half an hour of wearing it, is stabbing daggers into your toe, causing immense blisters on your heels, squashing your toes until they cramp with the claustrophobic horror of being jammed into too small a space.

It was this latter problem with a pair of truly stunning red ombre patent leather ankle boots, which led me to this genius tip.  I've had the boots for a long while.  Two years?  Four years?  A long time anyway.  And they had spent about twenty minutes on my feet in all that time (and five of those were in the shoe store).  They were, quite simply, much too tight.  Like, foot crunchingly, bone numbingly, cramp inducingly tight.  So tight I couldn't actually bend my foot in them to walk upstairs safely.  So tight my feet wouldn't sit flat in them but were crunched up in a curve of misery.    These boots were at the "you cannot let them take up closet space just so you can look at how pretty I am, either fix me or get rid of me" stage. 

So I googled "stretching patent leather" and up came this totally genius tip, which I have now tried and can confirm works beautifully... even on shoes that feel as though they are two sizes too small.
Put your shoes on your feet.  Aim the hairdryer at your shoes. Turn on hairdryer.  Moving it so you do not burn shoes or feet, warm up the shoes in question.  Wiggle your toes, or whatever bit of the foot needs a bit more room.  Leave to cool down completely.  If fixed, stop heating your feet.  If not fixed, heat your feet some more. Wiggle, cool.  Repeat until satisfied.  Apparently it works on all leathers, but I did it on these cursed patent boots.

It took me an entire evening of heat, wiggle, cool, repeat and at first I was unable to wiggle so my first stage was wearing the boots with hand knit socks on, bearing the pain for as long as possible whilst heating foot/boot.  This worked well enough to give me room to wiggle my toes a bit, so I put a second pair of socks on, then heat, cool, repeat.   The zip split apart on one boot when I was trying to get it go to up with both socks on inside it, but was luckily fixable (otherwise I'd have had to cut the boot off).  At one point I used a shoe stretcher and heated the boot with that inside, then left that to cool.  Finally I was able to get the boots zipped with two pairs of socks inside them.  And now, with only one pair of socks on (or a pair of tights which is the more sensible option) I can now wear my very expensive red boots without wincing in pain with every step. 

I do always worry  buying shoes from a new to me store might lead to discomfort once out of the store, particularly as shoes tend to be quite an expensive purchase and there is nothing more guaranteed to ruin a good mood than appallingly uncomfortable shoes. But with this tip, hopefully any future minor fit issues  discovered post-shoe store can be rectified easily and safely at home. 

And with that in mind, I sallied forth this morning to try on new shoes and came home with these beauties.  From Hotter. They felt like slippers when I wore them in the shop and I have very high hopes of them remaining so.    Not only are these pretty shoes, they are sensible too.  Normally the words shoes and sensible are not seen in the same sentence in this house.  I had to get shoes I can wear to drive long distances if necessary, as my ability to remember to change out of my flat driving shoes and into my heels at the conclusion of my journey seems to be minimal and my job can require me to drive four to six hours to meetings on occasion.    I have coats that go with both pairs of shoes.  And outfits in the wardrobe that will work perfectly with both, though I probably need to knit a shawl in the each colour and have the yarn available in stash to achieve this.  I even have an artisan bead that is teal and purple combined for my much loved charm bracelets, so can even have a bracelet to match if I want.  Its not often I manage to find things that work so perfectly, with so many items I already have.