This shoe was recommended to me by my clogging teacher as a split sole shoe as many students at the school use them. I already had another shoe that I liked when I started, but as I do toe stands already, this was suggested. This was a bad experience all around.
This is a split sole shoe. I got it with buck taps.
Quality: The leather itself seems good, but the pair I got arrived with two splits in the leather. The reinforced box appears to be a piece of cardboard around the toe. I don't expect this to last too long. The taps are not great. I had to spend an extra $10 at the shoe repair place to get the nails pounded back in. Almost every nail was out to the top tap. Being used to Steven's Stomper Taps, the taps on these shoes just seem, well, cheap.
Price: with taps, $82.95 plus shipping
Fit: I got a 9.5M. They seem to fit around your street shoe size.
Where to buy: www.carlsclogging.com
Customer Service: I did not have a good experience. Two weeks after I placed the order, I had not heard anything or received the shoes. (The vendor is in the next state, a few hours drive from here). I sent an e-mail inquiring about the lead time. I heard nothing for almost two weeks. I tried calling the 800 number on the website and got no response. There was no voicemail or any way to leave a message at that time. A day or so before I got the e-mail reply, I received the shoes. The e-mail wasn't especially apologetic about the delay in receipt or the delay in response. They even said they had to make more shoes and mine would ship when this had been done. That's a little scary, the fact that they didn't seem to know what they had shipped. If I was a dishonest person, I could've really taken advantage of that situation. The shoes were not packaged well. They were in a post office box which was damaged in transit. While this was not the vendor's fault, they still should've packaged the shoes better. The shoes were just inside the box. No invoice, no packing list or materials, not even wrapped in anything. And then I saw the to splits in the leather. They are small, and not all the way through, but almost. I was able to bandaid them with some super glue and an epoxy I have. And then turning them over and finding most of the nails raised. Seriously? I expect nails to work their way out over time, but not when I receive a new pair of shoes! After the bad communication I experienced, there was no way I was going to even try to deal with a return. I later found out that several parents at the school had other bad experiences with the vendor. I will not be going back.
What I liked: The width is actually wide, and the toe is rounded. This works well for a foot like mine. The leather is soft and supple, so even if they are not quite wide enough, they will stretch.
What I didn't like: Cheap taps, the leather on the sole seems cheap as well. The shoes have no support at all. Split sole shoes are often very flexible and offer less support than a solid sole, but I would liken the support in these shoes to slightly more than a pair of ballet slippers. I get terrible shin splints every time I wear them, so I will probably sell them once I find a different split sole shoe.
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