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.

The Three Butterflies Lunch is an annual fundraising event to help empower women around the world to transform their lives and their communities. The event brings together trailblazing women who have made an impact in their field; aspiring future leaders; inspiring women leaders from Womankind’s partner organisations and anyone else wishing to celebrate and support the empowerment of women worldwide.

The guests, including Upper Street’s co-founder Julia Grinham were treated to the sharp gags and uncanny impressions of compere Jan Ravens and a brilliant stand up set from Andi Osho before this year’s Keynote Speaker Germaine Greer‘s talked about both international and national issues affecting all women.

The lunch hosts an amazing prize draw and one lucky winner took away a gift to design her own shoes with Upper Street. Upper Street is very proud to have supported Womankind Worldwide and help raise much-needed funds.

We love the beautiful and sophisticated dress by The Fold that Julia is wearing with her own design Upper Street shoes.

Find out more about Womankind Worldwide and how you can support them and women around the world.

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.

Photos kindly provided by Bruna Martini of Boko Creative

Upper Street have partnered with new online destination boutique SaintBustier.com, the first ever retailer to provide tried and tested designer fashion specifically for larger busted women who have a bra cup size of D – H, but who wear standard clothing sizes.

To launch their website, they organised a photoshoot and asked Upper Street to provide a selection of our handmade, individual shoes to compliment their beautiful clothing line. Sarah McGiven, Head of PR at Saint Bustier said: “We chose Upper Street shoes as we love the fact that it’s inclusive and exclusive at the same time – we believe everyone should have access to stylish, well-fitting, quality fashion and Upper Street reflects this ethos with it’s varied sizing and being able to create your very own designs (as well as having the most beautiful packaging!)”

We had exclusive access to their photo shoot and can give you a peek behind the scenes.

We are very excited to see the finished pictures! The shoes compliment the outfits’ femininity and glamour perfectly. These cobalt blue snakeskin platform courts with triple strap will turn heads!

Note for this season: glitter leggings and nude platform peep toes are the next big thing. For extra playfulness go with a nude patent platform court with a bow on the front.

We love this look. Perfect for the office or a lunch with your girlfriends. Navy is not as harsh as black, but is extremely elegant and timeless. With Upper Street you can customise these designs or start designing from scratch, whichever one works best for you. Let your shoes do the talking! What do you think of the dresses featured? Let us know your thoughts on the comments below! We’d love to know!

Visit St Bustier’s Facebook page to find out more about them and sign up to their newsletter to be the first one to know about their website launch.

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.

Once again the SheSays Golden Stiletto Awards were held the 4th of October in London and we have exclusive access to the night’s events!

For the second year in a row, SheSays asked Upper Street to award the winning entry with their own personal Golden Stilettos. The idea behind these awards is to give recognition to a woman who created, planned, produced or managed a piece of work that changes the game for the digital advertising industry. It’s the first ever wearable award in the history of advertising!!

Whether you attended the ceremony or not, here’s a roundup of the night’s events, meet the winners and have a look at exclusive pictures.

This beautiful pair of gold snakeskin platform peep toes with an asymmetric front and burgundy suede and snakeskin accents, was a hit during the event.

The Winning team, Ale and Ana from Denmark, produced a video for Only, a clothing brand for feminine and strong women. In their words:

ONLY – The Liberation:
www.onlybecausewecan.com

We wanted to reach a young, female consumer by giving them a new permission to act a bit more freely and carefree, all summed up in the sentence ‘ONLY Because We Can’. The main execution ended up being a mash-up between a movie, a Flash based game, a music video, and a fashion catalogue with a focus on social sharing. We created what came to be ‘The Liberation’ – an interactive film experience with a well considered amount of user interaction, simple, yet strong design and art direction plus a highly detailed sound image.

With a simple click any time, the film freezes, turning into an interactive catalogue and from here you can: browse, like, pin, tweet and buy. You also interact with the story. Amongst other things, steal jeans, that, if you’re lucky, are sent to you for real and free. Finally your personal experience is summed up in a bespoke catalogue, so you can revisit the clothes you looked at, shop, share, download music and wallpapers.

We absolutely loved the video and those are a pair of  Golden Stilettos well deserved! Congratulations from everyone here at Upper Street, we really look forward to designing your winning shoes.

Let us know what you think about their winning project.

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.

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.