Pandora's Find

To be honest, this may sound totally bizarre, but I’d never actually been a shoe person before I owned Elegant Steps, my own shoe business.  Since going through school and realising I had larger than normal sized feet and when the right time came for me to buy fashion shoes like all my friends, ladies shoes stopped at size 8s and I was bigger than that!   

Cramming my feet in to ill fitting shoes!

I used to cram my feet into ill fitting shoes (much to my mum’s horror especially when she used to pay a fortune having me measured and fitted to wear only Clarks shoes when I was a child).  When I left school and needed to buy shoes for work and events, I bought what fit me...and invariably it was usually something in black!  Taking to buy high heeled shoes from transvestite websites....well I’m sure you can get the picture! 

Some of the men who buy the same shoes as me?

I have recently been helping my parents clear out their loft and I came across a box labelled ‘Jayne's Old Shoes and Boots’.  In anticipation I hurriedly snipped the string on this large box, that I obviously felt was ‘oh so precious’ back in 1993 when I took the time to package these items...what would this Pandora's Box behold?  I may like to add now that the sheer anticipation of lifting the lid on my past almost 20 years later, given my now chosen career path was practically one of the most thrilling things in my life right now....even after opening the box filled with my old graffiti covered school books!   

My graffiti filled school books from 1989!

My mind was racing...what exactly was this box going to behold for me?  What were my tastes like then?  Why were these shoes so important that I decided to keep them?   The anticipation was killing me...why did I wrap them so well too?!  Double knots and tons of sellotape! 

Pandora's box of delights!

The lid slid noisily off and I put it down next to me.   I was sitting crossed legged on the floor of the loft with a lime green pixie boot in one hand and black clunky ‘broken buckled’ shoe boot in the other and this was the first thought that crossed my mind....

”What on earth was I thinking when I bought these shoes?!”

1)   Did I actually wear these shoes? 

2)   I don’t even remember these shoes EVER being in fashion 

3)   Why on earth did I even keep them?    

Boots with a broken buckle ...did I think that it would be like cryostasis for shoes?  Freezing them in time with the hope that when I eventually opened this box 20 or more years later and there would be a cure for ‘bad taste and broken shoes’.  I would wave my magic wand and they would be all better again....or turn into a pair of size 10 ‘Christian Louboutins?’  No such luck!

The morel of this story...?

Well, I suppose it’s that things change....like me, tastes and fashions move on...so, take my advice....

1)      Don’t hoard old crap, even if you think it is for prosperity

2)      Don’t think the shoe girlie has a magic wand

3)      Honestly, bad taste can get better!

4)      We all make mistakes, it is what we learn from them that really matters.

Lots of love Jayne 

(AKA The Shoe Girlie) 

xxx

...and finally here we are!

Well we finally did it and got with the times and have created a blog.  This is to help all you girlies with your shoe needs.  Firstly let me start by telling you a bit about me and Elegant Steps.  Well I'm Jayne Bransby, I've owned Elegant Steps for 9 years since 2003 when I discovered my own problems in finding the perfect wedding shoes for my own wedding.  However, I do have slightly unusual feet...I am a big footed size 10!

erm maybe not quite me....but how I feel most of the time!

So, there I was 2 months before my own wedding stressing about finding ANY wedding shoes for my big special day, having ALL my friends, family and then work colleagues joining me on my quest (don't forget the internet wasn't as big as it is now...making me sound incredibly old and like it was a million years ago...!!).  I did eventually find my perfect pair on a website in the United States, where, believe it or not, they actually had fashionable shoes....AND ...drum roll please.... large sizes too! 

'Perfect' I thought! 'Simple' I thought.  

I ordered my perfect pair from the good old USA and they begin the longest journey to reach me for my dress fitting and fast approaching wedding!  After several phone calls, sweat beads and many head exploding moments.... they arrived...well, the UPS guy knocked on my mums front door and dangled the carrot in front of her...my box of anticipated shoes.... in exchange for .....a hefty cheque for 'import duty AND VAT' ....’WHAT THE...!’ When I placed my order for perfect wedding shoes...no one told me it would cost me EVEN MORE MONEY.....'WHAT!  I'd already robbed a bank to pay for the shipping costs...(well sold my beloved Ford KA to pay towards our perfect wedding day and fabulous honeymoon...and sold my independence to become a 'one car family').

My beloved Ford KA

....there were my beloved shoes so near....yet so far away...., mum ringing me in work to deliver the bad news.....the courier company NEEDED a cheque for another £55 before they would give them to her....after a slightly heated discussion with the UPS man and my head exploding again, my mum duly wrote a cheque for the required amount and then...the shoes were ALL MINE!  My reasonably priced shoes (so I thought) were now costing me and arm and a leg with all these hidden charges!  (BTW I now know that the UPS driver was only doing his job on behalf of our UK Customs...kind of wish I had this information at the time!).  

I really didn't then lol

So flexing out of work early that night and excitedly driving to my parents house to try what felt like my own pair of Cinderella Slippers....well that was until I tried them on and.....devastation.....they were TOO SMALL.  As I'd paid a small fortune to receive these shoes, I was damn sure that I wasn't losing out on them now!  My bridal shop recommended stretching them....and low and behold... after several sessions with the 'Kwik Save Cobbler' and me walking around wearing Football Socks and my wedding shoes (very attractive).... they actually felt like they were my shoes and fitted like gloves...phew!..and do you know, after all that...not one official photo of my beautiful shoes!

Our special day 10th May 2003

However....during this quest for my shoes, I actually realised just how many other brides must go through the same or similar situations with their quest to find the perfect pair of shoes.  Even if you are a standard size 5 or 6 the shoes were just plain 'DULL' or possibly described as 'Traditional'.  Now don't get me wrong, I love traditional, but sometimes us girlies want to bring out our personality in our fashion and with the only option of wedding shoes from the UK market at that time being dull....erm sorry...I mean 'traditional', our fashion forward UK British Brides were never going to let their personality shine through their shoes!  There began my first 'light bulb' moment and my personal quest to bring (at first) brilliant bridal and wedding shoes to local brides, in Wirral, England UK....that's where I am based....and that's when I started the business Elegant Steps and the rest, as they say 'is History'.  First the Wirral, then the UK now the world....I am now the UK's largest retailer of wedding shoes and own a 4 & half thousand square foot warehouse with shop/showroom filled with hundreds of wedding and evening shoes ...over 900 styles, I'll have you know! 

A huge wedding shoe emporium!

When I left my job to start my my business, my then boss, Paula, gave me a small plaque that she seen in a gift shop and it has been my motto ever since...'Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the World' (I believe its a Marilyn Monroe quote).  I feel I found my right shoes to help me to start to conquer this world of ours...so let me help you to find the perfect wedding shoes to conquer your world!

My Motto, Marilyn was a genius!

Lots of love 

Jayne xx