Lacing your shoes the right way can improve your overall look which means that you’d need to give it much thought.
While it’s true that people won’t usually notice it unlike your tie knot or folded pocket square. However, when you really want to achieve an impressive look that everyone would never forget, you might want to take care of details — even the ones on your feet.
With that said, you’d need to ensure that your lacing style is suitable for your shoe design and eyelet pair numbers.
Fortunately, there are different ways that you can flaunt your dress shoes through these various lacing styles:
- Criss Cross
This method is probably the easiest that you can apply to your dress shoes — and there’s a good chance that it came like this when you bought it.
It doesn’t matter if your laces are already worn out or you wish to switch to a different color, the criss-cross style is apparently a classic and a no-brainer design.
It’s highly recommended that you use this with an open lacing system — those kinds of dress shoes with tops made of two varying pieces of leather. Applying it on an open design type of shoes can make it easier for you to bring similar lace over the vamps and then back under.
Using this method on a closed lacing system can make bumps under the vamp which can be unpleasant to the feel of your feet.
- Diagonal
Do you want to add a modern twist to your dress shoes but don’t want to exert too much effort and energy in doing so?
Well, the diagonal technique might be perfect for you — it’s a piece of cake!
You can even make your shoes appear like they’re twins by creating parallel lines in the same direction. Or maybe you can switch it up so it’ll look like they’re mirroring each other.
No matter which you choose, you can definitely add some visual interest to your feet.
Good news — you can do this lacing method on both close and open systems.
Tip: This technique might look better when your shoes have more eyelet pairs.
Doing this on a 4-pair eyelet or less would be useless!
- Straight Bar
Some people say that this lacing method is boring, but wait until you try it yourself. This is another easy way to quirk up your overall look.
Like the diagonal design, you can also apply the straight bar technique on both open and close lacing system — which is the reason why it’s considered to be one of the most versatile methods.
It doesn’t matter how many eyelet pairs your shoes have; you can still make it a hit! It’ll look great on shoes with 3 to 6 eyelet pairs!
Are you looking for new dress shoes that you can apply these three different methods to? Read a well-researched review of Alpine Swiss dress shoes here — maybe that’ll be your new baby!