Thank you, dear readers, for your great stories about leaving a larger footprint! We are featuring the fabulous testimonials on our blog (see below), and will continue to include contest winners in future ShoeNews emails.

Here is this month's winner-- see our blog for the full story:

Shoe Story: Custom Made Extra-Wide Sandals

In 1986 I had a chance to travel to a very hot climate, where I would need comfortable sandals to fit my VERY WIDE and large feet.  The cobbler's shop in the mall had very nice custom sandals, simple and sturdy-- perfect, I thought, since it's so hard for me to find any shoes, much less sandals that will be comfortable in heat.  They made an outline of my feet and promised the sandals in 10 days.  Time went by, and went by some more, so finally I called and asked what was going on.  They said, "Oh-- we didn't make them. We thought there must be some mistake in the tracing. It seems impossibly wide. Can you please come down to the shop?"  So I did, and lo and behold, my triangular foot fit their triangular tracing perfectly.  They were embarrassed (so was I), and they hustled to make the sandals before I had to leave town.  Those were wonderful and comfortable sandals.  I ended up giving them away to a woman who had big feet like mine who had no access to big, wide shoes down in that country.  It was a gift of "solidarity of the big-feet women.”

- Alison

What's your favorite story about leaving a larger footprint in the world? Email your story with your name and hometown to info@designershoes.com; put SHOENEWS STORY in the Subject line. Monthly winners will receive a $25 gift check from American Express to spend on whatever you want. We will publish the stories in our blog using your first name and hometown and the winner will be featured in ShoeNews.

So much to say about shoes– how we look for them, how you look for them, what styles and colors are going to be hot. We've started a blog to collect this content and allow you to interact with other women who leave a larger footprint.

Visit our new blog: http://designershoes.typepad.com/designershoescom/