Lace Up! 10 Cool Ways to Tie Your Shoe Laces (with Pictures)

While most people stick to the same shoe-lacing methods that their shoes come with, there exists a near infinite number of possibilities for shoe-lacing. Shoes can be laced for comfort, utility, or for fashion.

Lace up your shoes in order to tighten them, loosen them, or to create an interesting style that can serve as a conversation starter.

10 Awesome Ways to Tie Your Shoe Laces

While there are a number of shoe lacing methods to match every need and every pair of shoes, here are 10 of the coolest ways to tie your shoelaces.

10. Zipper Laces

Just as the name indicates, this method of tying shoelaces has a distinctive look of a giant zipper. It has a decorative look and holds very firmly. It is great for tying boots, skates or climbing shoes.

9. Ladder Laces

Usually worn on military boots, this lacing is very effective in making shoes stay tight. Similar to the zipper lace, it is a great way to lace up those ice skates or hiking boots.

8. Lattice Laces

This method of lacing is one of the most popular ones worldwide. The steps are quite intricate but it has a great look especially if your laces are flat. It is tricky to tighten and leaves a lot of long ends on your shoelaces.

7. Pentagram Lace

The pentagram lace or star lace is a decorative style of lacing that can be used as a fashion statement. It has a rather loose fit and can be tricky to tighten.

6. ‘NO’ or ‘ON’ laces

This method of tying your laces is purely decorative. It is originally posted in Youtube as a ‘NO’ shoelace, but you can do it the other way around as ‘ON’.

Try this on at a casual social setting to use as a conversation piece. You’ll need a lace anchor or just tie a knot on the end of your shoelace in this method.

5. Straight Bar Lace

This method is popular for skate type shoes. the straight bar lace is simple, comfortable, and appealing to the eye. It modifies the fit of the shoe by reducing the pressure on the top of the foot, so it’s great if your feet swell, or if your shoes are a little too tight at the laces because of shrinking.

It also is an incredibly easy lace to learn and can be used for any shoes that have an even number of islet pairs 6-8-10, etc. Even if your shoes have an odd number of pairs the lacing can be modified to accommodate that.

This method is also good if your laces are a bit short and annoying to tie as that will leave more lace at the end.

4. Biker/Hiker Lace

This lace is another straight bar lace but it is intended for riding bikes or hiking instead. This is a good lacing for bikers because it’ll make sure that your strings are not caught in your bike.

The shoes is laced in such a way that instead of the two ends meeting in the middle at the top of the shoe, they both protrude from the last two eyelets on the outside of the shoe in order to be tied at the side, making it impossible for your laces to get caught in the gears or chain of your bicycle.

For hiking, lace the shoe so that the ends of the lace come out the inside of the shoes to prevent your lace from snagging on foliage like the straight bar, this lacing method only works on shoes with an even number of eyelet pairs but can be modified to accommodate an odd number of eyelet pair.

3. Sawtooth Lace

The Sawtooth method is a straight bar that has a little bit of an edge to it. While the laces on the exterior part of the shoes are laced in a straight bar, the laces on the inside intersect diagonally to create a striking appearance that looks good on any shoe.

Another benefit of the Sawtooth method is that it modifies the fit of the shoes so that they are tighter and the lacing can be flipped to tighten whichever side of the shoe you want.

This provides a great compromise between fashion and function without sacrificing durability, lace length or comfort.

2. Checkerboard Lace

This is a good lacing when putting shoes on display or if your shoes have a checkerboard pattern. The downside to this lacing method is that it leaves the laces significantly longer and the lacing itself is very loose due to the fact that this lacing method is impossible to tie.

The effect is created by one lace that is laced through the eyelets and loosely tucked into the shoe and the other is only tucked into the shoe. It’s good for slip-on or display but not any type of athletic activity or extensive walking at all.

1. Woven Lacing

The most elaborate and decorative lacing on this list is also the most challenging and least practical. Woven lacing gives your shoelaces an almost fabric like quality on the from of the shoe as you lace them in and out of the weave.

The benefit of this lacing is that it looks awesome, but the downside is that the lacing falls apart when your shoes aren’t tied and cuts down the length of your laces making a shoe knot more difficult to tie.

They’re also hard to maintain if you don’t have incredibly long laces like the checkerboard method, there’s really no way to tighten the lace so it’s best used for slip-on shoes or for special occasions.

Conclusion

There you have it, ten awesome ways to switch up the same old boring shoe tying routine. Go ahead and give one of these a try, and do not be discouraged if you fail on your first attempt!