Nice Work If You Can Get It

The process of “chroming” shoes (at least for dancers) is the process of attaching chrome suede leather to the bottom of shoes.

It’s a good idea to do this in a well-ventilated area.  The entire process takes under an hour if you have all the materials laid out ahead of time.  The materials you need are:

1. All purpose cement (such as Barge cement)
2. Chrome leather
3. Strong scissors / razor blade
4. Shoes
5. Wire brush or sandpaper (if the soles of the shoes are very smooth)
6. A brush and a pen

The 10 step process goes as follows:

1. Place the leather smoother side up.
2. Place your shoes on the leather and trace an outline of the soles with a pen.
3. Cut out the shoe shape from the leather.  Either cut slightly inside the traced lines, or just trim the excess off afterwards.
4. If  the shoe soles are very smooth, you may want to roughen up the surface with a wire brush at this point.
5. Brush on cement on the smooth side of the leather.  You may have to apply glue to the leather twice since it can sometimes soak in.
6. Brush on cement on the soles of the shoes.  Make sure there isn’t so much glue that it’ll glob together; just a thin layer will do.
7. Allow the glue to dry for about 20 minutes.  The glue should not stick to your finger when you touch it, but it should still feel soft.
8. Carefully apply each leather piece to the corresponding shoe.  You want to make sure you line them up properly from the beginning because you won’t be able to take it apart and try again!
9. Press down hard to stick the leather on tight.  You can use a hammer if you have one around, or just walk on the shoes for a while.
10. If there’s excess leather sticking out, trim it off with a razor blade or knife.
11. Dance (which involves many more steps…)

One last note is that if you wait about 24 hours, the less likely you are to have the leather peel away from the shoe if it catches on anything.  The shoes can be worn on and off the dance floor, but try to avoid getting them wet.