About us.

Where we are:

Alternative Footwear. 8 Cuba Industrial Estate. Ramsbottom. Lancs. BL0 0NE.

Tel: 01706 829955

Fax: 01706 829272

Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 10am-5pm Friday 10am-3pm Saturday 12-3pm. Closed Sundays and Wednesday.

For a map and directions please click here

Who we are:

Alternative Footwear specialise in unusual shoes and boots. Not that our footwear is strange, just you won’t find it in your local shoe shop. Known locally as the kinky boot factory, AF now operates purely from our warehouse and distribution centre in Ramsbottom, Lancs. No, before you ask – we are NOT in London! There is life outside the M25! So why not London? Well, we are in the heart of “the valley” (Backup and Rawtenstall) and as anyone in the footwear industry will tell you the valley was the engine room of shoe production in the UK, and is still thriving. There is still a steam train from Ramsbottom to Rawtenstall in operation today.

Our history,

Alternative Footwear’s 1^st direct retail outlet was in the town centre of Ramsbottom, less than ½ mile from our distribution centre, many of our regular customers and visitors still talk about it.

The Old shop

With our continuing efforts to meet customer demands, a retail showroom was built inside our distribution centre giving a greater selection and ease of availability to our ever-growing customer’s needs and eventually closed our little shop. Even today we still have calls from returning customers stood outside our old shop (which is now a hair salon) asking for directions. We deliberately had our shop telephone numbers now redirected to our warehouse as well as our direct warehouse ones. So if you’re looking at an advert of ours from many years ago – hopefully we can help you find us.

Warehouse showroom open to the public

Above is a picture taken on a cold winter’s morning at our warehouse. This was taken before the new shop front had been built as at that time this was purely a distribution point for supplying other shops, fortunately we didn’t catch any forklift trucks etc in this picture. From this point we ship on behalf of other shops, stores, etc as well as web traders and our own online customers from. Yes, you will see our range of shoes and boots offered around the web most are distributed from here.

Out and About

We no longer attend the monthly fairs up and down the country, as the physical logistics usually entail an artic truck. However, we do attend two events each year.

Erotica: London. Normally towards the last week in November. The picture below shows our 80sq. metre stand from from November 2004.

This was the biggest stand available to purchase for 2004, (80sq.M) which may not seem huge, however bare in mind the other shoe and boot stands were around 15sqM in total. This year we have managed to secure a massive 104sq.M and again, other shoe and boots stands are again 15-16sq.M. Unfortunately this will require two Artic trucks and a team of removal men to get all those shoes to London. So if there is a particular pair you wanted to try, please let us know at least 2 weeks before the event as these stands and rails are normally set up 2 weeks before. Even with this huge space, we cannot bring every style in every colour and in every size – we would love to, but we would still be unloading the trucks well after the event had been and gone.

Skin Two Expo:

The Skin Two expo is an event AF has only recently returned to attending. Our 1^st year back was October 2004. We had stopped attending because of the poor organisation of the event in both preparation and during the expo itself. We are happy to say that now under the management of Paul & Cathy Norris it has proved to be the event beyond both our and the customers expectations. Below are a couple of shots taken by Tim of Skin Two at the event.

As you can see, a lot of smiling faces! We try to tailor of selection of heels to suit each event separately, so please again, if you are thinking of a pair and haven’t yet told us, please do so asap. Last year we took a total of four stands at Expo, and yes – you’ve guessed it – still not enough space. With the help of the Expo team we have secured the largest stand this event has ever seen, we would have more but we do have to be considerate to other traders, clothing and gift companies as the venue isn’t that large.

So, if your wondering if we actually have any stock, or are we just a dot com company who operates from its kitchen table – we hope we have given you a little insight in our company.

Thank-you to our customers one and all.