text: These are well-made and very beautiful shoes.  But shoes need to be comfortable. The leather on the front band is very hard and rubbed my big toes and irritated them just walking around the house with peds on for a few minutes.  I was afraid that they would never soften up.  So although I loved the look of the shoes on my feet...I could never wear them for any length of time.  The shoes were well made and had sufficient padding.  Other Amazon customers have also written about this problem. I wasn't taking any chances with hopes that they would soften up. I decided to just return them. .