Mens and Women’s Shoes: The Differences in Design

I’ve had the opportunity to work for (and still do some freelancing) for some very big fashion brands. I’ve designed both women’s shoes and men’s shoes for a couple of the big players in each space. Just to toot my own horn real quick, my favorite all time favorite design was for JustFab where you can see my design (the Judy wedge) on their shoes page as one of the top sellers.

I’ve also contributed some freelance work for some smaller specialty companies for both men and women and there is obviously a major difference in coming up with design for womens shoes than there is for mens.

Many people have asked me which I prefer to work on and I would have to say that I really couldn’t say either way. I love certain things about working with both mens and women’s shoes.

For women’s shoes in particular I like how there are so many different style variations. I’ve mainly focused on fancier fashionable shoes such as high heels, wedges and even some boots, so I have been pretty fortunate in that I’ve been able to get very creative with my designs. You can obviously do a lot more with women’s shoes than you can with mens… The potential for creativity is much higher as you can incorporate different heel types, straps, embellishments and such. So for the creativity, I like working with women’s shoes.

Having said that, you can still get pretty creative and come up with some nice designs for men’s shoes that are both creative and classy at the same time. Take for example these beauties from AE (not my design unfortunately). They are both classy and creative at the same time because of the ornate patterns that have been made on the front and sides.

In the end… I’d have to say that mens shoes are a bit more challenging just because you are somewhat limited in what you can do.