EE-OO! EE-OO!

“Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Fashion police being dispatched to stall poorly-thought marketing of cheap Korean shoes overseas! Calling all cars! Calling all cars!”

YesAsia.com is a decent site where I sometimes bought Korean music and DVD’s online when I was back home, before coming out to Korea proper. Now, they have opening a new section of their web site – called YesStyle.com – to sell Asian-style (Korean?) clothes and accessories online. Of course, I went to see what shoes (were they really selling the standard agassi pumps that one might see on the streets of Seoul?) they were hawking.

To my surprise, they actually were Korean shoes. Although not exactly my taste, but they were selling some real Korean shoes. Here’s a pair that struck me as particuarly Korean-looking – they were unmistakably from the Land of the Morning Calm.

Worked right, they could be made to go with an outfit or three, and I guess the price of these Korean-style agassi shoes (around $40) wasn’t bad enough to through a hissy fit in protest. That’s not too far what you’d pay for these shoes in a street stall in Myungdong (30,000 won, I’d bet).

But you’re also getting the same infamous poor workmanship of the 20,000 or 30,000 won street-shoe-special. Like a hot top you might buy in the Idae area, the stuff looks good, but won’t look that good for long. With a shirt, after a few wears and washings, you might not be wearing it again.

With these shoes, you might last a few times with the shoes hurting your feet, and they either will or will not end up with a seam coming undone or having to wear a band-aid on your ankle to make it through the day. For better or worse, a sign of cheap shoes and poor choices made by the consumer to buy such shoes in the first place.

However, I can’t speak for the quality of these shoes sold on the site, although the pictures don’t make me feel like they’ll be around long enough to make it through a single season of wear. Take a look at the seams, as well as the decorative parts attached to the front and back of the shoes.

This close-up pictures speaks a thousand words. Does that look like it’ll be on the shoe for long?

I have the distinct feeling that there will be some sole detaching from upper portion after any degree of wear and tear. It just doesn’t look solid.

Besides the fact that the mini-vamp across the top of the shoe looks like it’ll pop off if you stand on your tippy-toes to get something from the top shelf in the grocery store, my real major quibble, my bone to pick with YesStyle – is that the sizes they offer are the most Korean of all, being sold in only the Korean sizes that basically fall in the 6-8 range or so. Several shoes are offered in only one size. Huh? For American feet?

Genius! Selling Korean shoes to American women – but without actually manufacturing them in anything other than the sizes they’re sold at in Korea! It looks like YesStyle is either just catering to Asian American (read Korean American) women who want to stay connected to styles back here on the peninsula while they live overseas, or that YesStyle has simply not made any special effort to actually seriously sell their shoes in America and is just dumping some Korean shoes off in a market to those why happen to be able to fit into them.

If you want to really sell shoes, you have to do the standard 6–10 foot size range you’d find in a physical store, and the 6–12 range you’d find on many Internet sites. I don’t see how they’re going make much a profit with the limited selection of styles, sizes, and apparently low quality of worksmanship.

Basically, these are the Payless Shoes of Korea, but at least Payless Shoes are as durable and well-made as they are cheap. Most of the shoes are less than $20 and won’t detach parts are you’re walking, and are much more comfortable. If you’re gonna go cheap, go reliable and better designed. Here’s a side view of a pump that has a similar feeling to the Korean shoes, but yes, they’re not Korean shoes. And Payless Shoes appear to be available in sizes 5-13 and with varying widths.

Here’s a fabulous Mary Jane-style pump with a great look and sassy patent shine with an interesting (and likely comfortable) wider heel. If you’re in America, why would you hurt your feet with cheap, cheap Korean shoes and not buy a solidly-produced pair from a reputable company for less than half the price? Yes, there’s a definite “look” to the Payless Shoes, but if you pick right and don’t let on that it’s a $17.99 shoe, who’ll notice? I wonder how much could be made selling Payless Shoes in Korea for like $50 each. Hmmmmmm….