The Proposal

So this past weekend Dax Hock posted a challenge “The Heel Challenge Has BEGUN! All Women in Heels, All Men in Hard Leather Dress Shoes. Who’s in?”

Of course I wanted in! However I faced two issues.

1. Functional dress shoes for dance tend to be expensive.
2. I am a poor college student and spend all my money on eating out at restaurants, hats, liquor swing dance travel and activities.

So I posed the query if anyone had any recommendations for hard leather dress shoes that are affordable for someone like myself. I got a flurry of responses, the ones that I felt helped me out the most I listed below.

While some people posted information to some breath-taking/badass dress shoes, unfortunately I did not list their suggestions here since they were a tad out of my price range.

Response 1:

Max Pitruzzella chimed in first with a recommendation for the Giorgio Brutini company. What I really love about this recommendation is the exotic section for shoes. You can pick up a pair that is unique and will set you apart from the average pair of dress shoes you see out there and have them be under 100 dollars.

Response 2:

Next Dax Hock himself put up a suggestion to try these shoes from Stacy Adams which was under 100 dollars and a good set of shoes to start with.

However he also warned that you get what you pay for and dropped a few other useful hints as well:

• Just go to a Nordstrom and just go try on shoes. Even a Ross might carry some discounted.
• Go to a thrift stores and find some oldies super cheap! Don’t think “dance shoe” think leather soled dress shoe and go for a style that is more vintage. Then get a leather heel put on.
• If you can get a Good Year Welted Double Stitched sole. It is a type of construction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Welt. Don’t by a sole with a glued on sole and no stitching leather, it will fall apart for sure.

Response 3:

Speaking of Goodyear Welts, our next recommendation comes from Jesper Andersen who recommended Grenson shoes which are all goodyear welted.

While normally this recommendation would be out of my price range he also notes that on ebay you can find these cheap and due to the Goodyear Welt process, if the sole is damaged, resoling a shoe is most likely not an issue.

In All…

I’d like to thank everyone who gave a response to my question, personally I think I am going to save up for one of those unique pairs of Giorgio Brutini dress shoes. If any readers have suggestions for affordable hard leather dress shoes, I’d love to hear them in the comments section.