Ladies Footwear Design size 10+. It’s not quite as simple drawing a pair of shoes!

All of my life I have had trouble trying to find shoes that fit! I am almost 6 foot tall with size 10.5 feet so it makes it quite difficult to find shoes! If I can find the right size shoe, they always have a giant heel which makes me way too tall OR if I find a low heel shoe, they only go to size 10 or they look like granny shoes so I miss out either way!

So I set off to learn how to design shoes so I could launch www.vertigoshoes.com.au and create beautiful shoes in larger sizes for Women (Size 7 to Size 14 – and bigger if you need them).

I did my Footwear Design course on the Gold Coast at the Australian Institute of Creative Design http://www.aicdedu.com.au/ and loved every minute of it! Designing shoes is so exciting. I created a collection of 12 pairs of gorgeous ladies shoes that were stylish and elegant with the added feature of a low (1.5 inch maximum) heel as I saw a huge gap in this section of the ladies footwear market.

Now that was easy wasn’t it? I thought so….. OK now to get the shoes made.... 

Searching for a manufacturer on the internet is very time consuming especially when you are not in the same country. There are not currently any Ladies Footwear manufacturers in Australia that could produce the type of shoes that I had designed. I then looked at China, Fiji, Indonesia, Spain, Italy and the list goes on. The time difference and the language barriers have all been part of the process.

In order to make shoes you need a ‘last’. Though a last is made approximately in the shape of a human foot, the precise shape is tailored to the kind of footwear being made. You need a last for every size, width, height and finding a manufacturer that already owned these lasts in the sizes I required was becoming almost impossible. So perhaps ladies with long feet, this is the reason that there are not more shoe designers specialising in these larger sizes for Women.

You also need to learn about materials to use for the upper, the lining, the stitching, the buckles, the heels etc.

I have now found my manufacturer and have had lasts made in larger sizes for Women. It’s been fun and I have come a long way from the first sketch of a shoe and almost ready for the launch of my new personally designed collection www.vertigoshoes.com.au – I hope you all love them too!

If you would like to learn more about the shoe creation process, I have added a video from Salvatore Ferragamo – enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ5JiGsw5O4

Now to research what my customers want or need! Tell me what you look for in design, materials and quality of a shoe and your favourite heel height? Let’s work together and create the exact collection that you have always dreamt of!

Karla