You’ve styled your mannequin perfectly. The outfit looks great, the proportions are right, and then you get to the feet.
If your mannequin stand has a support rod that goes through the bottom of the foot, putting shoes on the mannequin can suddenly become a challenge. Closed-toe shoes won’t fit over the rod, and cutting a hole in a perfectly good pair of shoes isn’t always an option.
Fortunately, you don’t have to leave your mannequin barefoot. Here are several creative ways to give your mannequin a finished, head-to-toe look without damaging shoes.
Option 1: Wrap the feet in ribbon
Ribbon has a few advantages over sourcing a shoe. It’s inexpensive, it takes seconds to change, and it lets you match the display’s palette exactly. And you can easily create different designs and add decorative elements to make the “shoe” look more elegant like in the examples below.
Option 2: Cut and dress a cheap ballet flat
Buy inexpensive ballet flats and embellish them. Cut a small hole through the sole where the rod will pass, slide the flat onto the foot, and then decorate over the cut — a bow, trim, beading, or fabric wrap at the vamp — so the hole disappears into the design rather than being hidden.
For a look with more height than a flat allows, cut a section of paper towel roll (or toilet paper roll) to the heel length you want, wrap it in duct tape to give it rigidity and a clean surface, and attach it to the underside of the ballet flat’s heel area with hot glue.
Once secured, wrap or paint the roll to match the shoe — fabric, ribbon, or even metallic paint all work — so it reads as a built heel rather than a craft-room fix. This is the cheapest way to get a heeled-shoe silhouette.
A few practical tips
If you’re cutting a hole in a ballet flat, size it to the rod and cut slightly small — you can always widen it, but a too-large cut tears.
Secure straps or ribbon ends with a small dot of hot glue or double-stick tape rather than a permanent adhesive, so the look can be swapped out later.
A paper-towel-roll heel takes glue and paint well once it’s wrapped in duct tape first, so decorate it last.
Option 3: Make a paper shoe
If you are the DIY type there are lots of tutorials on Pinterest for making paper shoes. Once you have a pattern you like you can change the shoes as often as you change the clothes on the mannequin. The tutorial for the paper shoe below is here.
Option 4 : Choose a shoe built to wrap, not enclose
A shoe built as an open wrap — a strappy sandal, a gladiator style, or a heel with a curved ankle band and open shank — has room to spare. The rod passes straight through the open center of the shoe while the strap does all the visual work of “dressing” the foot.
Look for styles where the upper is really just a band or two: an ankle wrap, a toe loop, a curved vamp that leaves the sole open. This shoe “The Mojito” made by Julian Hakes is an example :
More Mannequin Tips & Resources
At Mannequin Madness, we’ve been working with mannequins since 2001, so we know there are plenty of questions that come up when buying, dressing, and displaying them.
That’s why we created the Mannequin Madness Journal, where we share tips, how-to guides, display ideas, and answers to common mannequin questions.
And when you’re ready to buy, we sell new and used mannequins, dress form, mannequin heads and legs at Mannequin Madness.com.
Visit our website to shop for mannequins and dress forms, rent display pieces, or recycle your old mannequins.
