Advice on women wearing men's shoes.

[Professor Posh]

Hello everyone,
So you'll be happy to hear I did some lurking and searching before I posted this question. My wife wants to upgrade her dress work shoes. She is tall and doesn't need aggressive heals. She is looking for loafers, boots, oxfords and similar shoes in full grain leather with leather soles that are recraftable. She wears a US womens size 12 however and is having trouble finding shoes. After perusing Styleforum's wealth of archival information I suggested she try Gravati and possibly Carmina. She likes the Carmina shoes on the website but isn't sure if they will fit. We live in SE Michigan and the nearest store appears to be about five hours away.

Anyways to my question...
I had suggested to her that she just buy a mans dress shoe. A simple mans Chelsea boot or horse bit loafer should look fine on a woman's foot in my opinion. While I prefer a Goodyear welt for my shoes, I thought a blake construction might potentially suit her better due to it's alleged slimmer profile.

What does Styleforum think of this idea? Do you have any suggestions for a mans shoe that would look nice on a ladies foot? As far as price range is concerned I think she would want to keep under 750$ and lower if possible.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Felime]

I'm no expert but the best looks with men's style shoes I've seen on women have been loafers and boots. I work with a lot of architects and interior designers so I see a lot of women who are both stylish and not really traditional.

Your usual loafers work well enough and are similar enough looking to a slightly chunky women's shoe that if they fit they're likely to work pretty effortlessly.

Boots embrace the chunkiness more and work well because of it. I've seen women pull off an AE Dalton and look great, and a sleek boot like a jodhpur or Chelsea is basically unisex.

I don't think your standard cap toe or Oxford is quite as easy to throw on with anything as it is for men. It's totally doable but needs to be paired a bit more deliberately to work.

I sadly have no manufacturer recommendations, just what I've cleaned from women I work with.

 

[Professor Posh]

Ok, that is in line with what i was thinking thanks for the advice.

 

[Anachronist]

To add to the above advice, which I second, you may however find that men’s shoes run a tad wide for women’s feet, so your wife will need to try for fit. Carmina as well as Crockett & Jones both make beautiful women’s shoes (also made to order) which however run narrow, so she may find herself sizing up half a size. Both companies ship internationally, but of course this drives up price with import duties and if they don’t fit you need to pay the shipping charges. If you go down that route, bite the bullet of higher down-payment and order a selection of models and sizes and return what doesn’t fit. IMHO: if you really serious about buying her welted shoes, view it as an experiment with a risk of failure.

Personally, I tried getting my wife into wearing Goodyear welted shoes, but the beautiful pair of C&Js we bought in their London Jermyn Street shop are spending a Snow White sleep in their box for years now (I assume many ladies aren’t used to this firm leather and tighter fit at the beginning) and she quickly returned to the readily available and presumably better fitting women’s shoes.

 

[Professor Posh]

I think we will try the Carminas next time we are in New York or Toronto. My wife complains about finding shoes in a womens size 12 and the lack of overall quality in womens dress shoes compared to my shoes in a similar price range. I know I can find her some goodyear welted boots and loafers that will fit her. It will be interesting however, to see if she sticks with it. I will try to update after awhile and tell you everyone what she did.

 

[circumspice]

The current Carmina store in NYC is predominantly a men's shop, while a shop I was in while in BCN was more split fifty fifty. You might want to try calling the shop in NYC to see if they stock anything in her approximate size