Whether you're headed back to school or simply spicing up your fall wardrobe, colorful contrasting shoelaces are this season's hot fashion accessory…and they're not just for women.
Styling gentlemen are showing their true colors by sporting blue, green, and even red laces with conservative wingtips, suede boots and dress shoes.
Shoelaces are available in all colors and styles, so why not have a bit of fun with your footwear? There are solid color round laces (very hip), splash and multi-colored round laces, glow in the dark laces, flat solid colored laces and even Kermit the Frog laces.
Need inspiration? Here are Some Creative Ways to Flash Up Your Footwear.
Shoelace styling begins with selecting the right shoelace for your shoe. There are really no rules, but savvy designers (like my designer husband) insist that round laces are the best choice for dress shoes while colorful flat laces work best for sneakers and other athletic shoes.
Women can add a hot colored contrasting lace to boaters and walking shoes for a sophisticated fashion statement, or they can get flashy with multicolored laces on your tennis shoes.
Double Helix Lacing – Courtesy Ian Fieggen
Popular Lacing Methods
There are almost two trillion ways to lace a shoe that has the traditional 6 pairs of eyelets. Rather than list them all here (ha-ha), I’ll mention a few of the most popular lace-up methods.
Straight-Lacing – This is when the lace is straight across allowing the sides of the shoe to come together. (See the first photo of men's dress shoes above)
Double Helix – This lace up style causes less friction and is faster for easier tightening and loosening.
Criss Cross-This is a good method for lacing up sneakers and other athletic shoes. The sides of the shoes don’t come together in the middle, and allowances may be made for sock thickness. (see sneaker illustration below).
Get Flashy With Multi-Colored Laces
It's not difficult to lace up your shoes with two laces rather than one for a multicolored contrast.
The simplest method for using two separate colored laces is the Double sided lacing technique.
1-Choose two flat shoelaces in different colors. Make sure they are the correct length for your shoe type.
2- Place the flat sides of the contrasting laces together.
3- Lace the shoe using the traditional crisscross lacing pattern as shown in the photo. The top color should change with each alternating eyelet.
4- You can tie both colored laces together in a bow (shoelace knot) or you can tuck one of the colored ends into the top of the shoe and tie the remaining colored lace in a knot.
Want to Learn How To Tie Your Shoes?
You'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about shoelaces from Ian, also known as “professor shoelace”. The professor offers 37 different ways to lace up your shoes, complete with color-coded instructional diagrams for all (even color-blind visitors!). You can even learn how to do a one handed lace that eliminates the need to tie a knot or a bow.
Who Invented the Shoelace?
According to Wikipedia, the first shoelace was made of leather and was used to lace up the Areni-1 shoe which dates back to around 3500 BC.
Ötzi the Iceman, who lived around 3300 BC, wore shoes bound with shoelaces made of lime bark string.
I guess it took 5,500 years for contrasting, colorful shoelaces to hit the fashion scene. It just goes to prove that creative new fashion ideas aren't always recycled from a previous era.
So whether you're doing some back to school creative dressing, or just recycling that old pair of tennis shoes, have fun and step out in style with colorful, contrasting shoelaces.
NOTE: YOU CAN BUY COLORFUL SHOELACES ON AMAZON
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2 comments
I’ll have the red laces for my combat boots! Love the color options.
Very cool!