Narrow And No Arch Support
On the positive side, these Ballroom Dance Shoes are light and airy. You do not have to be dancing to wear these...rather, you can easily sport these when looking for a casual shoe for that summer night. The mesh material for the uppers make these quite breathable. The lacing system does allow you to lace these up pretty tight on your foot, likely a good thing for any kind of dancing. The rubber "shock resistant" sole and the rubber surface on the heel give you great traction when dancing or just walking around. There are 2 problems here, though. First, these are pretty narrow and the toe box is very cramped. The upper mesh material does have some give to it, but your feet do feel cramped. If you have any sort of wide foot, forget about these. As far as size, they may be just a tad small...you may want to go 1/2 size larger than your usual size. I ordered my regular size and they do fit, but it is close. Lastly, there is a cushioned EVA footbed insole. When I put my hand in the shoe, you do feel what should be at least some arch support. However, when you look at the shoe, you see that it is almost bowed, with the toe box up off the floor. This may be typical of "ballroom shoes", however, as a result of the shoe's contour, when you wear these, your arch doesn't hit the footbed's arch support at all. Because of this, there was almost zero arch support when walking. Although these do appear well made, these shoes didn't work for me.