stook1 said: A little spendy but if she's looking for a couple of pairs of really well made shoes you might consider the Carmina store by Grand Central. They have a womens range. There are also, I think, a lot of womens options on their outlet page. I haven't closely looked at the womens line myself but I've been debating bringing my wife for the same reasons that you describe below. With that having been said, my own shoe habit is bad enough so... Click to expand...

Ha... how about that, you brought up the very brand I’ve tried to sell her on before! I tried to get her to look at Carmina, as I think they make some of the best women’s shoes you can buy today, but she immediately looked at the price and evaluated against her fast-fashion conditioned “shoe-longevity to price” matrix model in her head and said no. I even offered to handle all the maintenance and everything.(By the way, I assume your talking about the store in the Roosevelt on 45th; when you move from the men’s and start looking at the women’s shoes, and you’re a size 13 1/2, the dude gets a very worried look. It’s hard to explain that you’re a shoe nerd and just interested in the construction.)