We all know about the fake Internet Louboutins and the Chinatown black market. We also heard about red stickers being used to color your soles red. Well, we found an even more interesting bag of tricks to pimp your shoes.
Our local shoe repair man says that customers are purchasing a variety of shoe brands and requesting he restyle the footwear with the red rubber he uses to resole his customer’s Louboutins. The red vinyl, which is purchased in large rolls, was initially intended to help Louboutin owners to repair their shoes fashionably. The big business, however, has been red-soleing less expensive footwear.
The “red sole upgrade” at Andrade costs $22 to $32 , depending on the extent of the work needed. To say the least, this service has been hotter than Ugg reconditioning. We are told that many companies have started producing red rubber for shoe repair but Vibram’s red is the closest match to Louboutin Red.
If your local cobbler doesn’t stock the favored Vibrum red rubber, you can always turn to eBay. We found an eBay seller charging just $6 for a 5.5″ x 4″ piece of red rubber. The eBay ad reads, “Protect your investment!!! Perfectly desing to fit your shoe, so your COBBLER will cut and shape these rubber soles to the exact size needed. Great for weather prooffing…With this soles nobody will notice any sign that your shoe was repaired.”
In other words, nobody will notice you’ve pimped your shoes. For the record, Payless is around the block from Andrade Shoe Repair. So who is in for an upgrade?
Andrade Shoe Repair
210 East 85th Street
212-988-0539