(Yes, this is that big of a deal. I had to break out the "1"s.)
Shu Flies already covered this in her post about plus-size stores in Taipei, but I didn't want to post about it until I'd checked it out personally.
Sandy Ho Shoes
#68 Zhongshan N. Road Section 1, Zhongshan District, Taipei
台北市中山區中山北路1段60號
#100 Nanjing E. Road Section 4 Songshan District, Taipei
台北市松山區南京東路4段100號
#336 Zhongshan N. Road Section 6, Shilin District, Taipei (Tianmu, near Whose Books, The Community Services Center and Best Buy clothing, a bit south of International Square)
台北市士林區中山北路6段336號（天母）
#100 Meicun Road Section 1, West District, Taizhong
台中市西區美村路1段100號
#71 Ximen Road Sec. 2 Zhongxi (Middle West) District, Tainan
台南市中西區西門路2段71號
#342 Zhonghua W. Road Qianjin District Kaohsiung
高雄前金區中華西路324號
#165 Wufu 1st Road Lingya District Kaohsiung
高雄苓雅區五褔一路165號
#289 Minsheng Road, Pingdong City
屏東市民生路289號
Or you can browse here. They're also mentioned here in a great article about larger-sized clothing stores for women in Taiwan. (As a curvy Western woman who has to shop in these stores, I do intend to put a review of them up later).
Sandy Ho has three locations in Taipei, one in Taizhong, one in Tainan, two in Kaohsiung and one in Pingdong City. Her stores aren't large but carry a fair selection of women's dress shoes in all sizes - some were even too big for me (that has honestly never happened before). I even met a Taiwanese girl who has to leave the country once a year to buy shoes, or at least she did until she found Sandy's store. As the first Taiwanese girl I've ever met who has feet that are actually bigger than mine (I wear a US 10 - it's hard to find nice shoes in a US 10 in the USA), I greeted her quite enthusiastically. "我很，真，這麼那麼高興見到妳啦！"
Most of her shoes are in the $60 US range, which for shoes of fairly good quality, I am OK with. If she's only got a few left of any one style, it goes on sale - I got one pair for NT $600.
The important thing is that they're dress shoes. I can get effeminate men's running shoes that could easily pass for women's sneakers here. I wear flip-flops or Birkenstocks (or even Tevas) as sandals, so those are easy to find in men's sizes. I have a pair of Grandma-tacular Obasan local-style cloth shoes (the quilted ones with rubber soles) in black for comfy days when I don't care how trendy I look - not that it matters as I wear boot-cut jeans.
But I do have a job that requires me to work in many different offices in Taipei and Xinzhu (not that my Xinzhu clients care one jot what shoes I wear: they're engineers. The best engineers in the country. They wear jeans and spectacularly unfashionable shirts every day). My finance/banking clients, however, probably do notice.
I posted a question about just this thing on Forumosa - "Where can I get large-size women's dress shoes" and I got a bunch of crap back that told me the following:
- where to get large-sized men's shoes
- where to get sneakers / running shoes / sandals that women can wear (because you know most foreigners here are either students or work in some kid's school where it doesn't matter)
- that I have to go abroad - "oh, go to Thailand and have someone make them for you" - as if. The whole point was asking where to get shoes domestically.
...all of which was ridiculously unhelpful.
So yes, I am very excited about the discovery of Sandy Ho's business. Not all of her shoes are to my taste (there are a few designer-style disasters like the plaid upholstered heels and lots of shoes with blingy crap on them, and some '80s monstrosities) but quite a few suited me perfectly. They had a fine selection of office shoes, flats, kitten heels, low heels ("court heels" apparently) and high heels. They even carried sizes too big for me to wear.
I am happy that their selection of flats was so good: a lot of companies in Taiwan erroneously believe that high heels are mandatory office wear for females, which is of course utter bollocks, to borrow a phrase from the British.
So, hooray for Sandy, and all you foreign females out there, give her your business!
