Thank you very much to everyone who took part in our Feedback survey in April. We’ve loved reading your comments, views and feedback and we’ve saved quite a few of your ideas.

In terms of new products your top 3 wishes are:

• Ankle boots
• Wedges
• Flat sandals

and these are all being looked at for future developments. So watch this space for more news…

We’s also like to take the opportunity to address some of the questions you raised during the survey and highlight services and products Upper Street currently offers that you may not be aware of.

We’ll source materials and colours for you
It’s great that you love the range of colours and materials we offer, but there were requests for different materials. We’ll look at what we add next to the Shoe Designer, but if there’s something specific you want we can source it for you. Our material sourcing covers all types of materials and colours and we’ll send you a selection of samples to pick the colour and/or material you want.

Emily needed a very particular shade of blue patent and suede to match her dress and we sourced the perfect colours for her: read her shoe design story >>

Contact us on +(0) 845 680 9365 or email iloveshoes@upperstreet.com if you’d like to know more about material sourcing or to order.

We can change our shoe design options

Thank you very much for your feedback on the new shoe styles you’d like to see on Upper Street. While we’re looking at our development schedule, we can make alterations to our shoe uppers (we can’t change the heels & base shapes) to create the shoe you want.

A T-bar on a court and platform shoes: Bride, Francesca, added a T-bar to her white snakeskin and gold leather platform peep toe shoes to create her perfect bridal shoes: read her wedding shoe design story >>

Why not add a T-bar to a court shoe to create the perfect work shoes, like these brogue round toe courts?

Add a bow to the back of your shoes, like Jane did with her brilliant, individual ballet flats or Lizzie, our Customer Relations Manager did with her suede and snakeskin round toe courts.

Or combine our Swarovski jewel cluster with a bow to add an extra Luxe touch to your shoes?

Contact us on +(0) 845 680 9365 or email iloveshoes@upperstreet.com if you’d like to know more or to order.

Design your shoes with your own material
From tartan wedding shoes to making shoes that are a perfect match to your outfit: if you have your own material, we can use it to create the individual shoes you really want. Lianne wanted her bridal shoes to reflect her Scottish heritage, so she sourced a Royal Stewart tartan and Upper Street made her a truly unique wedding shoe.

Solve your worries about fit & design with the Shoe Lounge
For those of you that would prefer to see, feel and try on our shoes before buying, we offer complimentary appointments at the Upper Street Shoe Lounge in our North London Townhouse. You can try our shoes for fit, see and feel the materials you would like to use in your design and also receive expert design advice to help you get the individual shoes you want.
book an appointment >>

Free alterations to fit
It doesn’t happen often, but if you receive your shoes and the fit isn’t quite right, we’ll alter them to fit for free. Just let us know within 7 working days of receiving your shoes.
find out more >>

We’ll refund if you’re not happy with your final design
It’s very important to us that you’re happy with your Upper Street shoes, but if for any reason you’re not happy with your shoes, then we can either remake them or refund you the full cost of your purchase, excluding the original shipping costs.
find out more >>

Thank you once again to everyone who took part in the survey, and to keep up to date with everything that’s happening at Upper Street, subscribe to our newsletters , follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook. If you have any comments you’d like to make about Upper Street services, please leave them below or email us at iloveshoes@upperstreet.com – we love hearing from you.

And don’t forget your thank you offer code for completing the survey expires on 31st May 2103, so order your own design shoes before then.

Upper Street – the made-to-order luxury shoe label where you can design your own shoes and have them delivered right to your door.

All Upper Street shoes come in a huge range of sizes from the petite shoe size UK 1.5 (33) to a generous shoe size UK 10 (43) with 4 width fittings. We also offer free alterations to fit and we’re so confident that you’ll love your final design that we’ll refund you if you don’t!

My name is Clare Bland. I live in London with my husband Paul, labrador puppy Billie and a growing Upper Street shoe collection, and I work across South and Central London as a freelance private PA.

I’ve been in love with Upper Street shoes for two years now. I ordered my first pair on 1 March 2011 and I’m now in the process of designing what will be my eleventh pair! I love Upper Street so much because I have had extremely wide size 43 feet since the age of 11, and Upper Street means that I can FINALLY enjoy wearing shoes that are not just gorgeously glamorous and intensely individual, they are also conspicuously comfortable and effortlessly easy to wear.

After years of having to wear ‘granny shoes’ for school, ‘matronly’ courts for work and men’s shoes for casual comfort, I make no excuses for being able to revel in the thrill of ferociously fabulous shoes at last. I am so in love that I remember when I first ‘met’ Upper Street (reading about the website in a magazine in a dentist’s waiting room in 2010) with a clarity not unlike that with which I recall first meeting my husband!

It’s not just the shoes themselves that are awesome. The team who run Upper Street are all fabulous too. The service, care and dedication with which they work to make every pair of shoes perfect just adds to the enjoyment! I’ve become such a regular in the Studio that Lizzie, their Customer Relations Manager asked me if I’d share my inspiration for my shoes, so here you are….

The first pair I ordered were a simple, statement pair of red patent platform heels. Not particularly imaginative, perhaps, but they happen to go with anything and everything! I remember opening the box with trepidation when they were delivered – hardly daring to hope that they might fit – and being so deliriously happy when my feet slipped into them easily and I finally experienced a heeled shoe that fitted rather than pinched…

Pair number two were for a wedding in June 2011. I had a dark purple dress to wear and the purple leather matched perfectly. I fell in love with the flower detail and used a vanilla satin front on the sandal to set off the purple flower. I lost count of the compliments – even the bride admired my shoes on her wedding day – and I danced until the small hours until I was the only girl still boogying with my shoes on at the end of the evening (yes, they really are that comfortable)!

It wasn’t long after Upper Street introduced ballet flats that I was hitting the website shoe designer again. Even back then I never thought I’d end up with so may pairs, so I was aiming for a monochrome shoe design that I could wear with anything. But I can’t resist a bit of drama so it had to be the heart design and the zebra print…

Then I found I needed a pair of courts that could take me from a day in the office out to a networking event in the evening and would do for an interview, hence a pair of black and pewter patent courts with a buckle: proof that you don’t have to go mad on colour or embellishments with Upper Street. These are my power ‘new client’ shoes.

This must have been when I realised that I’m never going to stop buying shoes from Upper Street and it was time to indulge a little and stop designing monochrome shoes to go with everything! When Labrador puppy Billie arrived to live with us in May 2012 I treated myself to a pair of camel and cinnamon suede ballet flats with a black patent ‘nose’ and red trim to co-ordinate with the puppy and her red collar.

So then the flood-gates were open! Pairs seven and eight are very similar rainbow-themed shoes. One pair with a low heel and snakeskin toe and heel for day and evening wear, the other a similar pair but with a high heel and platform with black luxe-suede toe and counter back for a real party / glamour option. I have a bad back, so I have the option of a lower or higher heel depending on how well my back is behaving…

The ninth pair is another one designed with work in mind: low heel, nude snake body for interest, with a black snakeskin toe, back and strap. These have arrived recently and I’ve been waiting for a dry day when I’m heading into the City for their first proper outing.

I’m also waiting for an opportunity to wear my tenth pair outside the house: an Upper Street ‘Special Order’ pair of silver snakeskin and black patent mules which I originally wanted to wear with a new ‘Marilyn-esque’ bikini, but which are so comfortable and easy to wear that I can’t resist wearing them around the house with jeans. I know I will wear and wear them in the summer.

And what of the next pair? I am working on a pair of ‘grown up’, ‘on trend’ pointed courts to wear when I celebrate my 40th birthday this year. With such wide feet I never would have contemplated a pair of pointed shoes, fearing they’d make my feet look ridiculously long. That was, until I was able to try on a pair of pointed courts at the Upper Street Studio and I realised I, too, can wear the latest shoe trends at last…

For now, my favourites are my high-heeled rainbow shoes and my mules, but who knows what new inspiration will strike next?

Thank you so much to Clare for sharing your shoe story and designs with us today. We’re here to help women, whether they have a generous size 9 or 10 foot or a petite 2 or 3, to have and enjoy the shoes, they want and deserve.

After designing her shoes with Upper Street, Martina sent us this fabulous story about her family history and shoe-making. We love that Upper Street inspired Martina to follow her grandfather and mother’s footsteps and design her own shoes with us. Do spare a couple of minutes to read Martina’s story.

Martina’s Story

My love of beautifully-made shoes was kindled at an early age.  My great grandfather owned a shoe factory in Germany prior to the Second World War which made high quality shoes. My grandfather was employed in the family business as the overseas sales manager and he visited England pre-war.

In 1939 he and his family (including my mother aged 10) left Germany to escape the Nazis and the German shoe factory was lost. The family moved to England and my grandfather got a job in shoe manufacturing in the Northamptonshire area. I understand he brought from Germany various lasts and patents and was a pioneer of the use of cork as a light-weight flexible material for innersoles.

My mother grew up to be very artistic and when she left school she trained in fashion design and became a shoe designer. She worked for several years as the top shoe designer for Lotus and visited the Paris fashion shows where she sketched madly and then came back to her office bursting with lots of ideas. I still have a portfolio of her designs many of which, though they were drawn around 1950, could easily be worn today.

My mother and grandfather taught me to love shoes and buy well-made shoes. Several times I remember having to restrain my grandfather in a shoe shop from trying to rip out the innersoles of shoes I was attempting to buy so that he could check how they had been made. So I always loved shoes, but it was always a great source of frustration to me that I have rather wide feet and therefore I usually find I can’t squeeze into the lovely shoes I really want to buy.

When I grew up I am afraid I became a scientist and never thought of following the family route into shoes! SO when I read about Upper Street, because of the offer you ran with Times+, I was intrigued. I very much liked the fact that one could design shoes without having any artistic ability whatsoever!

So I did this – my cobalt blue and black patent ballet flats are the first pair of shoes I have ever designed and I enjoyed the experience hugely. I love cobalt blue and I have a jacket they will go with in due course.

I am sure, if they were alive today, my mother, grandfather and great grandfather would all be very proud of me and most interested to hear about Upper Street.

Thank you so much Martina for sharing such a fabulous insight into your family history of shoes and we’re sure your family would be very proud too.

Upper Street - the made-to-order luxury shoe label where you can design your own individual shoes and have them delivered right to your door.

Here at Upper Street, we’ve always been lovers of leopard print – this fashion classic is both timeless and elegant yet makes a statement, especially when used in accessories. Shoes are the perfect way to showcase a little leopard love and can lift an otherwise simple look to another level. For feline footwear fabulousness, take a look at some of our favourite leopard print shoe designs…

Leopard print ballet flats

Starting with the classics, we adore leopard print ballet flats. These were designed by fashion blogger Alex Loves and have been given a very stylish twist with a black snakeskin counter back and toe cap and a sprinkling of gunmetal studs. These are the perfect every day, statement flats.

Leopard print kitten heels

Kitten heels and leopard print are the quintessential, perfect feline match. These leopard print kitten heels are designed with a contrasting black snakeskin toe cap and Mary Jane strap are a ladylike shoe to take you effortlessly from the office onto to cocktails. Wear with everything!

Leopard print pointed court with bow

Fuchsia pink accents are a fun way to liven up your design when working with leopard print. We love these classic leoprd print pointed courts with a contemporary short toe and elegantly tapered high heel and a fuchsia snakeskin bow and counter back. For every day wear, choose the lower 2.25″ kitten heel at the checkout or try a tonal bow colour such as chocolate brown or black.

Red & black leopard print platform court

For the fashion adventurer there’s leopard in glorious colour! These classic black suede platform courts are given a bold, rock ‘n’ roll stamp with a red leopard print toe cap and heel and a black leather platform. This print looks amazing as a contrasting accent or when used as the primary material for your shoe design. Be brave and experiment with your design!

Purple leopard print platform court

Change your spots and stand out in the shoe jungle with these amazing purple leopard print platform courts with a black snakeskin heel and platform. Wear as your statement accessory with a classic Little Black Dress or pair with skinny jeans, T-shirt and blazer. Head turning guaranteed!

Whether you choose to design your shoes in full on leopard print or with subtle accents here and there, you’re sure to find your purr-fect combination in our extensive range of materials, shoe shapes and finishes. For more inspiration, take a look at our luscious leopard shoe gallery.

Come and visit our Upper Street Studio in London. Whether you’d like to try shoes on before ordering, view our samples and material swatches or need help with designing your shoes, we’re help to help you.

To book a free personal consultation, email iloveshoes@upperstreet.com or call us on 0845 680 9365.

If you can’t make it to the studio but want to see our full range of luxurious materials, visit our Swatch Store. Whether you’d like to experience the richness of our suedes, feel the silken quality of our sumptuous Italian satins or visualise our glossy patents as a shoe, you can order as many swatches as you want!

Upper Street - the made-to-order luxury shoe label where you can design your own individual shoes and have them delivered right to your door.