Are Guidomaggi shoes any good? This hands-on Guidomaggi review has everything you need to know.
Elevator shoes – also called “height increasing shoes” or “tall shoes” – are shoes that make you look taller. In the same way that high heels make women appear taller, heightening shoes add a couple of inches to a man’s height.
Tall shoes aren’t for everyone, and I’m not recommending that all short men should wear them. More on that here:
Should Short Men Wear Elevator Shoes?
But if you are going to wear height increasing shoes, you have to make sure they’re stylish. Unfortunately, many elevator shoes are downright ugly, but Guidomaggi is different.
About Guidomaggi
Emanuele Briganti created Guidomaggi, a shoe company that makes luxury height increasing shoes, to offer customers elevator shoes and boots that actually look good.
Emanuele is 5’9″ and a long time menswear enthusiast. He couldn’t find any heightening shoes that actually looked good.
He saw that most elevator shoes were mass-produced in Asia, and he believed that he could create a more comfortable and better-looking product.
Guidomaggi shoes are handmade (sewn by hand, as opposed to machine-made) in Italy using old school, time-tested techniques honed by Emanuele’s great-grandfather, Guido Maggi.
How do Guidomaggi shoes work?
So how do Guidomaggi shoes make you taller? They include an extra insole called the “increaser insole”. It’s removable, and it comes in different thicknesses.
Thicker = taller. So you can choose between 2.4, 2.75, 3.1 or 4 inches of extra height. In my opinion, 2.4″ is plenty!
My Experience
Guidomaggi carries all kinds of shoes, from dress shoes and loafers to boots and
They’re made with full-grain leather, goatskin lining, waxed laces and a rubber sole (which is much better than leather for walking on wet surfaces).
You can see and feel the premium construction quality in these boots. They fit like a glove, and they’re much softer than other boots I’ve tried that require a painful breaking in period.
Walking around in these boots feels a bit awkward at first. The insole tapers toward the front of the shoe, so your heels are higher than your toes. This isn’t visibly noticeable, but you can definitely feel it:
I like these boots because they can be dressed up or down. They lean toward casual, but they’re sleeker and more elegant than other boots that are strictly casual, like the Wolverine 1000 Mile or Alden Indy.
Heightening aside, they really are handsome boots. Unlike many other tall shoes, these don’t look blocky and obvious.
They just look like nice leather boots. The height increase is subtle (at least with the 2.4″ insoles).
Are Guidomaggi shoes worth the price?
Guidomaggi shoes are not cheap. I got these boots for free, for the purpose of this review, but they’re the some of the most expensive footwear in my closet.
Like any other high quality shoes, these are long-term investments – the kind of shoes you bring to the cobbler to get resoled instead of throwing away.
If you prefer to buy high quality footwear that will last a long time, I think you should apply that same reasoning to your height increasing shoes.
So, if you want to wear elevator shoes, and you can afford to buy premium quality, Guidomaggi is for you.
1- The shoes are non refundable , even though it says they are on their website, but in reality, the CEO ( Emanuele ) does not accept refunds because he believes the shoes are handmade. So the website lies.
2-They are heavy and they hurt your back and heels and ankles .
3- You might be able to wear then for 5-10 minutes, more than that and you can feel your back hurting
4- The buyers protection on their website is bs, it doesn’t care.
The shoes are pretty in their photo, but in reality they’re really huge and heavy
Hi Brock, Great site btw! Interesting article…At 5.7″ I’ve been wearing elevator shoes for quite a few years and went through endless amounts of poorly made shoes often with too much additional height ( I think anything over 2 inches is a problem, especially when you have to take your shoes off!). The only decent made pair I have are from donsfootwear (midsole 2inches extra in height) but I find them to be heavy and have caused me quite a bit of ankle pain. Are the Guidomaggi heavy in weight?
personally you recommend the 2.4″ or the 2.75″? i want something that is undetectable when i wear.
Brock mate, my google alert for elevators and GuidoMaggi led me to your excellent site: you look great in those boots and no-one in 100 years would think you had added height. I have been adding height through lifts since I was 19 (now 35) and am quite an expert at doing it undetectably. I only discovered GuidoMaggis (GMs as I call them) through my google alert and I did not buy at first for a long time because of the price. They seemed way out of my range but totally fab: they were/are in a totally different league to anything else, and that is obvious from the site.
With 16 years experience of lifts and of ignoring most elevators (mass produced far east stuff and not v good), I finally took the plunge when I had signed up to the GM site and got a small promotional discount. It was the best thing I ever did – the boots are classic, will last forever and are undetectable. And I bought the 5″ elevator, the highest. That height is probably not for everyone but if it IS your bag, then the GM ones are which are the most undetectable. As I am totally used to the business now of my heel being a bit higher, it is no issue. You quickly get used to it. But the boots themselves are just fab. Style, look, fit.
Hi ROBV, I am wanting to buy one pair of their sneakers, dress shoe, and boot. Would you recommend another company that’s safe but not as expensive?
You have my utmost approval. You look like you’re at least 5’9” tall and the way you put together that look – very stylish and masculine. The way men should always dress.
Thank you, sir. Can’t go wrong with a field jacket and boots.
I just love your shoes, Brock and they really do not look like elevator shoes – classy, they are certainly a keeper.
Thanks, Annetta!
These shoes are nice, but way out of many guys’ budgets. Any idea of lower cost alternatives. I used a Chinese made elevator shoe back about 10 years ago and they wrecked my feet.
There are other companies making good-looking elevator shoes, but I haven’t personally tried any of them, so I can’t vouch for them (in terms of comfort and quality).