This week’s Shoe Design of the Week is school teacher, Jessica Jones. We absolutely loved her simple, yet stunning design for her platform courts. So keep reading to find out more about her experience with Upper Street.

Tell us a little about yourself

I love quirky, bright and interesting clothing and shoes and have an eye for things which are distinctive and unusual. I’m known around school for having a bit of a shoe obsession and my shoes are often the first thing my students notice when I walk into my classroom. I have a huge amount of shoes in all the colours of the rainbow, and yet I often find myself frustrated that I can’t find the perfect shoe for a particular event or occasion. I remember walking around for hours in search of a low-heeled, patent slingback with a covered toe to team with an evening gown, but my search turned out to be fruitless and I had to compromise on my shoe choice for that event. When I heard about Upper Street, I was overjoyed, as their shoe design service seemed like a dream come true.

What inspired your shoe design?

I am getting married next year, and although I had already purchased my bridal shoes, I wanted a special pair of shoes to wear for our minimoon following the wedding at Easter. My shoe collection encompasses so many different colours and materials, yet I do not own a pair of patent pink heels, which I’ve always coveted, though I’ve never come across the ‘perfect’ model. Upper Street’s shoe design tool was easy to use and within half an hour, I had created a pair of gorgeous, shiny, fuchsia platform heels.

What did you think of your shoes when you received them?

When the box arrived, it was like Christmas had arrived early. As I opened the layers of packaging, I became more and more excited. I regressed to my juvenile self, literally tearing open packages as I used to when I discovered presents under the Christmas tree. The shoe box itself was a delight to behold; a stylish black treasure chest with a cherry-pink bow adorning it. When I read the hand-written note from Upper Street inside, I almost burst into tears. Everything was just so beautiful.

Have you worn your shoes yet? What did your friends think?

After modelling my heels for my fiancé, who was almost as delighted with them as I, I carried the box into school with me. My students had listened to my tales of the design process and were eager to see my new shoes. Their reactions made the whole experience even more special.  They’ve already decided that they are going to help me design my next pair of Upper Street shoes! My beautiful, new shoes are now wrapped up in their box ready to be taken out and worn when I am a married woman. Although, they may get a sneaky outing at Christmas; they’re far too delightful not to share…

Thank you very much Jessica for sharing your shoe designing secrets with us and we’re delighted that we could help bring an end to your endless hours of hunting for the perfect shoes and making your shoe dreams come true.

View all Upper Street’s shoe styles >>

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Love Jessica’s shoes? Customise her shoe design >>

For more inspiration for your platform court design browse our platform court and round toe court galleries

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

Made-to-order shoes, designed by you: Start designing your shoes >>

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.

This week’s Shoe Design of the Week is from lovely bride Isis, whose wedding took place in the House of Commons the same day the anti-austerity protests were happening. She told us how her Upper Street shoes saved the day after their cab couldn’t go past the police barricades a couple of streets away from the House of Commons.  We couldn’t help but fall in love with her wedding story and the fact that her shoes played such an important part in her special day.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Isis and my hometown is Santa Cruz (a surf town on California’s Central Coast).

I am a lawyer. My career brought me to London a little over five years ago, and now it’s home, though travel remains my passion (I just came back from honeymoon in Zanzibar).

What inspired your shoe design?

I designed my shoes for my wedding. I wanted shoes that were special – so special that I could wear them again. I couldn’t imagine when I would have another opportunity to wear the white satin shoes I kept seeing in the bridal shops, but I did love red.

I started playing with shoe designs on the Upper Street website and was drawn immediately to the red snakeskin. My (now) husband had bought me a red crocodile bracelet from Aspinal last Christmas; my bridesmaids were wearing red and we were having intense red rose floral arrangements. I wanted to make sure the shoes looked the way I imagined, and that they were comfortable (I was walking myself down the aisle and was terrified of tripping!), so I came in to the Upper Street studio. Lisa not only helped me finalise my shoe design, but helped me try on a variety of styles and browse through the shelves of archived shoes.

What did you think of your shoes when you received them?

I was excited! Our wedding celebrated London (the city where we met) and was thus a mix of traditional and modern. On the traditional side, I wore the veil my husband’s mother wore at her wedding, my engagement ring was from 1910, our ceremony was in the House of Commons, and a vintage Routemaster bus took us to our reception. Our reception was more modern: American style cake from Hummingbird Bakery, margaritas, and keeping with my husband’s Scottish roots, lots of whiskey and bagpiping. I thought these shoes provided the right contrast to my yards of bridal white.

Have you worn your shoes yet?

I was married in October. The guests (and groom) loved the red touches. The red added a lot of warmth to a fall wedding. Despite all our planning, we couldn’t have planned for the massive anti-austerity protests on the day of the wedding – there were police barricades surrounding the House of Commons in all directions, and the bridal party ended up having to abandon our cab and navigate through several streets of riot police. The shoes got me through the protests and down the aisle – and back up for a fantastic party afterwards!

Thank you very much Isis for sharing your gorgeous wedding shoe design, story and beautiful photos with us. We’re delighted to have played a part in making your wedding day so special.

Being able to design your bridal shoes at Upper Street means there are no limits – tear up the rule book and be as individual as you like.  As well as uing your choice of material, we can offer special orders such as inscribing your shoes and adding a blue lining. What better way to help make your wedding day the most amazing day of your life?

For bridal inspiration visit our bespoke bridal shoes gallery and view our bridal blue shoe gallery to see more colours, design and embellishment options and then create your own personal design in Upper Street’s 3D Shoe Designer. Browse our full range of colours and materials in our Swatch Store and you can order swatches for that all important perfect match.

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.

This week’s Shoe Design of the Week comes from South Manchester and is lovely bride Francesca. We absolutely loved her story and we are sure you will too. She looked stunning on her wedding day! So keep reading to find out more about her experience with Upper Street.

Tell us a little about yourself

My [New!] name is Francesca Chiorando Meredith, I’m originally from South Manchester, but have spent the last ten years traveling up and down the country for various University degrees and jobs, until deciding to settle back home with my new husband! Since moving back up North I have been working with my family, but before that I trained and worked in fashion. I always have to have a project on the go, recently it was our wedding, and we have also been refurbishing our new house ready for married life… I love to have something to research, plan and design, and I love learning new things! This year I gone from screen-printing wedding invitations one night, to knocking plaster off walls the next day…it’s been an interesting year!

What inspired your shoe design?

Having worked in fashion [and being a bit of a control freak] as soon as I heard about Upper Street, there was no WAY I wasn’t going to buy their shoes for my wedding! I did try to talk myself out of it for a short while, as obviously the wedding costs were spiraling, I even bought a crappy pair of high street shoes at one point…but I just couldn’t do it… shoes are important to me, and even if no one sees them (which they did!) I know they are there. There is no way I could’ve worn just any old pair of high street shoes for my wedding. As some of my friends like to say, I am a little contrary, I’ll always like the thing that no one else likes…I think just to be awkward, so the idea of having bridal shoes that I designed, and that no one else would have, was amazing.

I played around with the design for quite a while on the online designer (which is just brilliant) I designed about 10 variations of the same shoe: I knew a few definites, it would be 4.5 inches, it would be a platform, and it had to have an ankle strap or T-bar (I’ve had an obsession with ankle straps since I was five!)

In the end, after visiting the lovely girls in their studio in London, they offered to make me a special shoe with a T-bar that is slightly different to the one they normally did. I love the idea of a T-bar, not only is it super cute, but it means you can throw yourself around without any risk of the shoes coming off!

I wanted to design a shoe that wasn’t obviously a bridal shoe, but was bridally enough, I wanted something that I could wear again… I couldn’t bear the thought of typical bridal shoes; I can’t stand satin, and low heels…eeek!!

What I didn’t expect was to design the shoe I ended up with, on paper it sounded awful: 4.5inch platform in white snakeskin and gold leather?? Yeugh! But they are gorgeous! A lot of my wedding was understated, quite a plain dress, Pachelbel to walk down the aisle, a lot of it whispered simplicity, but these wonderful little shoes, hiding underneath my dress, ready to pop out screamed excitement!

What did you think of your shoes when you received them?

I adored my shoes on sight! I immediately tried them on and started prancing around in them! There were a few slight fit issues, and when I contacted the girls at Upper Street, they could not have been more helpful! I sent the shoes back and received a perfectly fitting pair within a few weeks. I was so impressed with their service and contact, which is absolutely invaluable, especially where stressed out brides are concerned!

I loved how beautifully the shoes were packaged, they were totally luxurious, I kept getting them out looking at them, and spending ages wrapping them back up again! The shoes themselves were beautiful, they were so well made, and I couldn’t believe how well they fit considering I had ordered them online. I just could not wait to be able to wear them properly.

Have you worn your shoes yet?

I wore my shoes for my wedding in June 2012, and they were a hit! Aside from being gorgeous, they were so comfortable that I wore them all day long, and even walked from the reception to our house in them (which took us about 30 minutes!) I danced like mad in them, and ran around, without one tiny bit of discomfort. This is pretty impressive for wearing shoes for the first time, for over twelve hours!

A lot of my friends asked to see my shoes, as they all know that I love high heels, and it was great to show them off! A few were quite surprised at how high they were for a wedding shoe, but not surprised that I had chosen them. It was brilliant to be able to show off my shoes, and explain how special they were, to have something so individual for my wedding, when so many things are often repeated. I had had a few problems with over aspects of the wedding, and so to have this part be so perfect was really lovely, and not something I had originally planned.

The week of the wedding, I was even more surprised to receive a lovely card from the girls, wishing me well for our wedding, it was so lovely of them to remember, and to show such care. It shows that to the girls at Upper Street, it’s not just about making shoes, it’s making dreams come true!

Thank you very much Francesca for sharing your gorgeous wedding shoe design, story and beautiful photos with us. We’re delighted to have played a part in making your wedding day so special.

Being able to design your bridal shoes at Upper Street means there are no limits – tear up the rule book and be as individual as you like.  As well as uing your choice of material, we can offer special orders such as inscribing your shoes and adding a blue lining. What better way to help make your wedding day the most amazing day of your life?

For bridal inspiration visit our bespoke bridal shoes gallery and view our bridal blue shoe gallery to see more colours, design and embellishment options and then create your own personal design in Upper Street’s 3D Shoe Designer. Browse our full range of colours and materials in our Swatch Store and you can order swatches for that all important perfect match.

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.

Call us nosey, but we love to know about how you design your Upper Street shoes. Are you looking for something very definite from the start or are you designing as you go? Do you do it all on your own? And what about your partner, does he ever have a say?! So we were delighted when Martin got in touch and told us about how he and Emily created her beautiful Shoe Design of the Week as a team. From ordering swatches to sourcing different colour materials, Martin and Emily share how they designed her shoes with Upper Street…

1. Tell us a little about yourself
We are Martin Mills and Emily Hooper, both 38 from Yetminster in West Dorset. Emily is a psychologist and Martin is a sales manager for a farm machinery manufacturer. We have two daughters aged 3 years and 18 months, 3 horses and 4 dogs so you could say our house is a little busy! As for hobbies they pretty much revolve around the horses and dogs, so we’re quite outdoorsy. Martin enjoys photography and has just started cycling again after many years off the bike.

We love shoes! I (Martin) have always had a good eye for a classic and elegant pair of shoes (I blame my mum) and Emily is one of those girls who just looks sensational in heels. Emily currently owns approximately 60 pairs of shoes, each kept in its box with a small photo on the front to aid identification. She has shoes by Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin, Gucci, Manolo Blahnik, Stuart Weitzman and Gina which are all fantastic in their own right, and certainly quite exclusive out here in the sticks, but there’s nothing quite like owning a unique pair of shoes.

2. What inspired your shoe design?
In her work Emily wears suits and formal dresses to see clients and selects her shoes very carefully, always complementing the outfit, but being careful not to look too over the top like she’s going out for the evening. Most of her suits and dresses are grey, black or somewhere in between but in August she bought a waistcoat dress by Hobbs that is made from a lovely blue fabric that is quite unusual. We tried matching shoes to it, a pair of pewter grey Mary Janes by Stuart Weitzman or pewter grey peep toe LK Bennett court shoes look OK and of course there is the current trend for nude/natural coloured shoes that go with everything. But Emily really wanted something a bit special to go with this dress, which coincidentally happened about the same time as we saw a link to Upper Street on Facebook.

I set about playing with designs and colour combinations. The basic design was easy, we both prefer pointed toes and slim heel (not platforms, yuk!) and are partial to straps, the thing that took us a while to agree was the number of straps! Was three straps going to be too over the top for a work shoe??? Eventually we agreed on the design for a pointed toe court shoe, with three Mary Jane straps, blue patent toe capping, heel, back and straps with a blue suede upper.

We knew matching the colour would be key, so we ordered swatches from Upper Street to see how the blue suede and blue patent leather went with the dress. They came very quickly and were beautifully presented, but alas were not a match for the dress. We received an email from Lizzie shortly after the swatches arrived so I asked if there were lighter shades available, as the blues we received were too dark.

Lizzie explained that Upper Street would source different fabrics so we asked her to put the process in motion. About a fortnight later several swatches of blue suede and patent arrived, we spent a lot of time comparing them to the dress under different light sources and felt that one of the blue velvet suedes was perfect, but none of the patents was a good match. Lizzie duly let the production team know and some more patents were sourced. This time they came up trumps so we ordered Emily’s new shoes in her special colour combination. Lizzie confirmed that the order had been received and now we had to be patient to meet Emily’s new shoes!

3. What did you think of your shoes when you received them?
I had an email from Upper Street to say our shoes were on their way and then had a text message from the courier with a delivery time, perfect as we’d both be home at the time. With the camera on hand (is that a bit sad?) we opened the package. The shoes themselves were beautifully presented, in their box secured with a ribbon. Once inside we found a personalised note addressed to both of us (I wonder how many men get as involved in the shoe design process as I did??) and then to the shoes themselves.

Well, they are perfect in every way, Emily says they will wear in just fine and the colour is spot on. We are both delighted with Emily’s new shoes and these will certainly not be the last shoes we buy from Upper Street. I had pictures up on Facebook within the hour and have already received a number of complements.

Thank you very much Martin and Emily for sharing your shoe designing secrets with us and we’re delighted that we could help you source the exact material needed for the shoes to complement Emily’s dress perfectly.

View all Upper Street’s shoe styles >>

Design your own shoes >>

If, like Martin and Emily, you want to match your shoes to a particular outfit you can order all our materials from 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!

We can also source different materials and colours for you and also make your shoes in your own material (if suitable). Please contact Lizzie, our Customer Relations Manager on 0845 680 9365 or email iloveshoes@upperstreet.com for full details.

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.