“My feet hurt. So basically I went into business in order to liberate myself.”
“My feet hurt. So basically I went into business in order to liberate myself.”
Alicia Muñiz, founder of Comme il Faut, to HuffPost
That’s Alicia Muñiz, co-founder of Comme il Faut, speaking to HuffPost in 2011 (The Sweep of an Elegant Toe). It may be the most relatable origin story in tango.
A first class in Avellaneda
According to a feature republished by Info Calzado from La Nación (InfoCalzado profile of Alicia Muñiz, in Spanish), Alicia was about thirty when a friend persuaded her to try a tango class in Avellaneda. The friend didn’t show up that night. Alicia stayed anyway. On those dance floors she met her husband Fernando and Raquel Coltrinari, who later became her business partner. Tango fascinated her, and soon she was at every milonga in the city.
“Always black and old-fashioned”
The shoes did not fascinate her. “I danced the tango but didn’t like the shoes on the market, they were always black and old-fashioned,” she told AFP (AFP feature on Comme il Faut, via Kuwait Times, 2022). So she took a shoemaking course. Travel Life Magazine reports that her first pair took two years to perfect (Travel Life Magazine profile of Alicia Muñiz). Then she wore them to a milonga, and friends wanted to know where she got them.
What she made was radically different: lace, leopard print, velvet, satin and gold. “I made open-toed shoes. That was completely new!” she told Travel Life.
Twenty women in the living room
Raquel joined her soon after. “At that time the business was in my house,” Muñiz told HuffPost. “We had a separate workshop where we were making the shoes… but we were selling them out of my living room. The trouble was that very soon, there were twenty women in my living room almost every hour of the day.” Famous dancers began coming too. She named Graciela González, Alejandra Mantiñan and Geraldine Rojas.
(If you’d like to hear Alejandra Mantiñan in her own words, Dimitris Bronowski shares excerpts of her chapter in Tango Tips by the Maestros in Alejandra Mantiñan on Tango’s Lost Secrets and the Courage to Dance.)
Comfort first, then beauty
Muñiz’s philosophy, in her HuffPost interview, was to design “for comfort first and then for appearance”. Speaking to AFP, she described an almost indestructible steel wire inserted into the soles, toes that can’t be pointy, a strong strap and one big idea: “The soul of the shoe is the arch.” Her highest heels are 9.5 to 10 cm. “Anything more and you would not be able to dance without twisting your ankle.”
The name comes from a classic tango title and, in French, means “as it should be”. The same AFP piece reported that the brand sold around 15,000 pairs a year, exporting to Europe, Japan and the United States.
What buyers can learn from it
- Arch fit is personal. Try several models, because lasts differ.
- Thin heels can still be stable when the shank and heel construction are right.
- Fit over fashion, even with a brand famous for fashion.
Read more about choosing tango heel heights and straps and toe styles, meet more tango brand founders, and see the complete guide to tango shoes and clothes for women.
Find a store: see our guides to tango shoe stores in Buenos Aires, tango stores by country & city.
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There you’ll find the brand and its resellers alongside dozens of other stores. Compare them and see what you like.