In this age of the internet, when there is enough info to help you create a hydrogen-boosted car or build an entire kit home on the net, there is an awful temptation to just look up how to fix your broken high heels on the net, and give it a bash. However, some things work better on the DIY principle than others ... while professional shoe repairs may cost a little more than a home-job, ultimately they are far more worthwhile when it comes to the health and looks of your shoes. Here are the top 4 reasons why.  

1.            Leather needles are very specialized 

Leather needles are far more specialised than simply a big fat sewing needle. A needle suitable to sew up a tear in the leather of your high heels will need to have an enormous chiselled head, with three surfaces and an extremely sharp point. You'll need a thimble appropriate to the needle to push it through, and specialised shoe repair thread which is waxes and colour-matched to your precise shade of leather. And you know what all that specialisation means … buying a leather needle is not just like whipping into the back aisle of Woolworths and grabbing a button repair kit. 

2.            If you stretch shoes by yourself, they may be irreparably damaged 

The internet will tell you that you can do the same job as a professional shoe stretcher with nothing but a half-alcohol, half-water solution and a pair of athletic socks. The idea is a little counter-intuitive to me! Stretched leather cannot be unstretched, so unless you’re willing to risk a several-hundred dollar pair of shoes on a science experiment, leaving the stretching to a professional service is best. 

3.            You would need to buy items like eyelet setters, patches and various glues that make the process non cost-effective 

Shoe repair is not simply in the skill, though, professional shops have a variety of tools and bulk-bought supplies that can either be very difficult to get as a consumer, much less cost-effective than at the shop, and possibly only useful for a single repair. Items like eyelet setters might only be used once in your lifetime; patches and glues and shoe thread are much more cost effective when bought wholesale, of course. 

4.            If you mis-identify the material a shoe is made of, you may use the wrong product and cause irreparable damage 

The glues and surface preparers that are used in many shoe repairs are designed specifically to work with a single material … we all know how finicky suede can be, for example, and just about every other shoe care product on the market will not work with suede. That said, there are quite a few different types of leather and other materials that shoes can be made of, and your shoes won’t always be marked. If you use the wrong solution, you could burn, permanently stain, gunk up or otherwise make your high heel shoes generally unattractive. 

There are repairs some repairs for high heels that can be done at home (for example, smoothing over scratches or re-gluing part of the sole on), but in general if you would like to keep your handmade high heels looking as good as the day you bought them, they will need professional treatment!