Antonia Saint NY: Destined for Fuck Up Night?

Fuck Up Night is a thing and the next one in Brisbane will be held on the 22nd of May. I hadn't heard of Fuck Up Night before this weekend. But I am happy to know something like this exists. Because if you only hear about the success, not only do you get a skewed view of the world. You also don't get the whole picture. Not to mention miss out on important lessons. Unfortunately, Antonia Saint New York, a product design Kickstarter I backed, might be a startup heading towards a spot future Fuck Up Night.

I wrote about these shoes before, when I measured my foot using their app. I complained at the time that the app was somewhat difficult to use. But I thought they got the sizing about right because my final show size was 8.5. However, now that the shoes have arrived, I can categorically say that they are the worst fitted shoes I have ever worn and I have worn some pretty ill-fitted but pretty shoes!

I have multiple problems with the shoes. The biggest being that it's extremely tight around the toe box. The shoes also don't hug my feet as they should. It's too wide around the middle and thus leaves the gap. There is also a slight issue with the heel area but compared to the toe box, its nothing!

Now here's the problem. I am not the only person who is having huge issues with the fit. Their Kickstarter comment section is full of women complaining about the fit. I don't know if this was an app issue or I simply got shipped the wrong pair. I mean, it's not like my names on the shoes. Whatever it is, I have to return them because my shoes are bad enough that I can't even wear them while just sitting still.

Antonia Saint NY has already had to waive their "return within 30 days" policy and moved the request for return labels from email to a Google Survey. But as a customer, this is all very worrying.

Because while the shoes are expansive, they price isn't all that high when you take into account the fact that these are supposed to be custom made shoes, manufactured in Brooklyn. I.e. the labour costs are likely to be fairly high. So forget long term success, I am not even sure if the company is going to be able to exchange all the ill fitted shoes! It's worrying but that is the risk of Kickstarter. All that said, I am hopeful that I will get a better fitted pair of shoes eventually. Also that the company will go on. Because comfy shoes are important!