Dance shoes made for most other dance styles are often very unsuitable for flamenco – worse than dancing in ordinary shoes, in fact!

Character, jazz and ballroom dance shoes are designed to be flexible, so you can bend your foot and point your toe. Soft, flexible shoes like these are absolutely useless for flamenco – you need rigidity and strength!

If you have tap shoes or Irish dance shoes, they are much better, but not if they’re flat-heeled. In flamenco, even men were heels for a reason—they make it much easier to do any footwork involving heel strikes.

For men, a pair of cowboy boots or riding boots may be a better option than dance shoes—anything with a Cuban heel.

On balance, women may be better off wearing a pair of sturdy street shoes.

Mary Janes (the style with a bar strap) are an obvious lookalike for flamenco shoes, but look at the strength of the shoe, too. You want a shoe that isn’t too bendy.

If you have a pair of plain pumps with the right strength, they'll work better than soft Mary Janes.  Just sew on an elastic strap.

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Photo by Flavio Grynszpan