Shoe Stores Along 5th Ave from 34th Street to Union Square

Yesterday, I went shoe shopping with my friend Allison for her wedding. We mapped out a little course from my office to the DSW on Union Square, and trotted along Fifth Avenue in search of the perfect pair of iridescent teal shoes to match the sash on her dress.

I can't remember the name of our first stop, so I'll start with our first planned stop, Nine West. The first pair of "adult" sunglasses I ever purchased was Nine West. They were lime green cat eyes, and a full $30. In 2009 dollars, this would be $40.09 (courtesy of the Inflation Calculator, one of my favorite websites), and so for this reason, I tend to think of them as a higher end shoe store, but judging from our trip yesterday, they're actually quite reasonably priced. The store was also very large and open, which I like. However, they had nothing in iridescent teal, so if you are also searching for bright blue bridal booties, no need to stop here.

Next, we made an unplanned stop at Kenneth Cole, which was extremely crowded with salespeople, but not customers, which meant that we were greeted 5 times in a store that's smaller than my bedroom. We found a pair of painted pumps that might have worked well, but unfortunately, they didn't come in a small enough size. I should have mentioned that Allison's feet are ungodly small.

Sacco was up next on our list, and I liked the amount of flats and sandals they had there, but things were a little pricey for flats and sandals. They had a cute selection of scarves, but unfortunately, only one pair of blue shoes, which were a little bit ugly.

We ended up at DSW, one of my favorite shoe stores, where we found out that Steve Madden once had the hook-up on iridescent teal shoes. We found the perfect pair of flats, called P-Stella Ruffle Vamp PT (what?), which looked like they'd been dyed the same color as the sash. Unfortunately, in flats, Allison needs an even smaller size than in heels, and they didn't have a 5.5 at that DSW.

Finally, we ended up at Shoemania, which the website says is "Manhattan's Largest Shoe Store," but which is actually Manhattan's Scariest Shoe Store. It was packed, had almost no selection, and was blasting extremely loud, extremely bad dance music. The basement "clearance" section also looked like storage for empty boxes. I would not go back, nor recommend it for shoe shopping,

I'd love to show you a picture of what the perfect flats look like, because they are really pretty cool shoes, but I can't find them online. Instead, you can see a picture of the utterly sensible, librarian-style Bandolinos I bought instead of getting the ballet flats I was seeking.