ballet shoes

I am so used to shopping online that I even ordered ballet shoes for my daughter online.  But alas they were too big and I had to send them back.  I know that with ballet shoes I usually have to order a size or two larger than her feet but bloch ballet shoes are actually made to size, hence my faux pas as we hadn't had that brand before.

There I was thinking today , where can I order ballet shoes for next day delivery as I needed them in time for her ballet class on Tuesday afternoon.  When suddenly it dawned on me why don't I just try my local ballet shop.  Sounds simple but I'm so accustomed to online ordering that it simply never occurred to me.  I think the problem was that I knew that the ballet shop didn't open every day so I had to call leave a message then call again as the time for my daughter's ballet class grew closer and closer then finally success as someone answered and they had her size in stock.  I was able to get her bloch ballet shoes with the elastic already sewn on.  The pre-sewn elastic is a huge plus for me as I always dread having to sew them on myself.  It's an absolute nightmare positioning the elastic just right and trying to get the needle through the leather.      

Ordinarily I was just searching for dance shops online but interestingly enough I discovered that John Lewis sells ballet shoes though not with the pre-sewn elastic.   In addition did you know that the search term "ballet shoes" and in particular "leather ballet shoes" refers to regular shoes like these cap toe ballet shoes from Lands End below?  I had no idea.  So of course there is always the distraction of being side tracked by your own shopping needs when shopping online.