SHOE-SAVING TIPS

This week, People featured our very own Melissa Rivers’ closet, which is full of custom details and clever design solutions! The gallery highlighted her picture perfect shoe wall, where we created dedicated space for boots, heels, flats, and everything in between! Melissa takes great pride in her shoe collection, and wanted to see them all properly stored in the new dressing room. For this reason, we even created a first-of-its-kind pull-out cabinet just for her flats and sandals. This was an idea Melissa inspired, and is the perfect solution to maximize storage for your more casual slip-ons you don’t necessarily want to display, freeing up valuable space on the open shelves.

If, like Melissa, you’re a shoe lover with a multi-seasonal collection, I want to share a few solutions to help keep every pair stored properly and looking its best! Whether you’re looking for a custom closet upgrade, or a few off-the-shelf accessories to elevate your shoe storage, there are so many easy upgrades that will make a world of difference.

Shoe Inserts

If you aren’t already familiar, the Formé shoe shaper is the best (and first) high-heel shoe shaper you can buy! It’s infinitely adjustable to ensure the perfect fit for every pair of pumps, wedges, or strappy heels without causing stretching or leaving any unsightly marks. This is the perfect little gadget to incorporate in any closet, and keep your collection looking like new.

Boot Trees

For many of us, boots are a tricky seasonal item to store. They’re large and cumbersome, yet you want to keep them stored neatly so as to avoid wrinkles and creases in the leather! Our hanging boot trees are great for maintaining the shape of your favorite winter boots, and keep them looking tidy in your closet when you aren’t wearing them! Even better, they can hang on a closet rod rather than toppling over to the side or ending up piled in the floor!

Boot Bags

For the bulky boots you only break out a couple of times per year, consider a soft-sided, waterproof bag to protect them from the elements! These are great since they can be stowed on an upper shelf or under a bed, and you won’t have to worry about finding your favorite suede boots with scuffs or dust when you go to wear them next winter! They’re also great for travel, with a clever top handle to make it easy to tote your boots along for a trip!

Storage Boxes

We all have some shoes we wear more than others, and more casual pairs we don’t necessarily want to see in the closet! A decorative storage box is a great solution to discreetly (and efficiently) stow away your flats, and will also keep delicate suedes and leathers protected from potential pests! For an added layer of protection, I recommend to also keep each pair in its proper dust bag before storing away.

Pull-Out Storage

Easily the most custom (and innovative) solution for shoes, is the pull-out sandal storage we created for Melissa’s closet! While she wanted to see most of her shoes, she really wanted to prioritize the shelf space for her designer heels and boots. Since smaller sandals and flats that could easily be stored together, we designed a series of pull-outs behind doors with partitions to store them neatly on their sides, as if they were in their own little shoe boxes. This is a great efficient way to keep your more casual shoes out of sight, yet easily accessible!