OCTOBER BUSINESS: Head Over Heels

Most women enjoy going shoe shopping. However, when you’ve got hard-to-fit feet, shoe shopping isn’t always a fun indulgence, but a major frustration.

Head Over Heels shoe boutique in downtown Edmond is giving those women a reason to celebrate by offering high-fashion styles for all types of feet. That means specializing in sizes as small as 4 and up to size 12, footwear that offers more or less arch support and shoes that fit a narrow or wide foot.

“About 80 percent of women wear the wrong size shoe,” said Sue Krominga, who’s been catering to those hard-to-fit feet since the boutique opened in 2011. “If they have narrow feet, they wear a shoe that’s too short. If they have wide feet, they wear one too long to get room for their toes. You do what you have to do to get the shoe.”

First-time Head Over Heels shoppers get their feet properly measured to determine the proper length, then the width. Finding the proper fit is crucial, Krominga said; it prevents those unpleasant and painful foot-related maladies like bunions, hammertoes and neuromas, or pinched nerves, that come from wearing the wrong size for too long.

“It’s fun to have those customers come in who have a really hard time finding shoes,” she said. “They’re almost determined they’re not going to find something because they have so much trouble. Then we narrow down their size and bring them out 20 pairs of shoes, where other stores might bring them out one or two.”

“It’s like Christmas. They get very excited because they have choices. But they get distressed, too, because they have to make a choice.”

The small, intimate-feeling shop carries Brighton handbags and shoes in several styles from Clarks, Naturalizer, Mark Lemp Footwear, VanEli, Trotter and Munro American.

Krominga runs the shop with her daughter Kelsey, a recent business graduate from the University of Central Oklahoma. When it comes to this mother-daughter duo, they’re the perfect pair to run the show.

“We have a great relationship,” Krominga said. “We share the responsibilities and it’s a great pleasure for me to be able to work with my daughter. I love that.”

Learn more about Head Over Heels by visiting headoverheelsok.com. Visit their new downtown location at 104 S. Broadway, Edmond.