How to Tie High Top Shoes

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

High-top sneakers, such as the Chuck Taylor line made by Converse, were originally designed as basketball shoes, but are commonly worn as a casual fashion statement by both men and women. In the 1990s, these shoes were sold with shoelaces which fit a seven-eyelet shoe fine, but aren't quite long enough to tie a full bow with an eight-eyelet shoe like Chuck Taylors. Current shoelaces are long enough for the shoe, but many people buy tubular or colored shoelaces and lace them in special ways to stand out as unique.

Straight Across Lacing and Tying

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Choose your preferred color and style of shoelaces. Look at your shoe, and mentally number the shoelace eyelets, starting at the toe of the shoe and running up to the top of the shoe.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Begin lacing the shoe with the eyelets closest to your toes. Center the shoelace at the toe. Run the shoelace over the first eyelets, so that both ends come up under the vamp of the shoe, next to the tongue.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Take the right shoelace in your hand and lace it under the second right eyelet. Then lace it down through the top of the second left eyelet.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Take the left shoelace in your hand and lace it under the third left eyelet. Pull it through and lace it down through the top of the third right eyelet.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Go back to the shoelace now coming out of the second left eyelet. Run it vertically up the inside of the shoe next to the tongue, and pull it out through the fourth left eyelet. Pull it through and across, and lace it down through the fourth right eyelet.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Go back to the shoelace at the third right eyelet. Run it vertically up the inside of the shoe next to the tongue, and pull it out the fifth right eyelet. Pull it through and across, and lace it downward through the sixth left eyelet.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Continue this pattern of lacing until you reach the top of the shoe. Make sure the laces remain flat through the entire lacing procedure. When you reach the top, pull the shoelace from the seventh right eyelet up to the eighth right eyelet for tying. Tie the shoes. If you want to leave them untied, pull the laces tight enough to keep the shoe on.

Tangle Lacing

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Start lacing your shoes in a normal criss-cross pattern, but start from the top of the shoe rather than the bottom. Center your shoelace, then start lacing from the eighth eyelet on both sides, counting the eyelets from the first, at the toe of the shoe, to the eighth, at the ankle.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Skip the seventh eyelet. Lace criss-cross through the sixth eyelet instead, running the right shoelace through the underside of the sixth left eyelet and the left shoelace through the underside of the sixth right eyelet.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Continue lacing, skipping every other eyelet. Lace criss-cross through the fourth and second eyelets.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

After you have laced through the second eyelet, go ahead and do one last criss-cross lace through the first eyelet, the one closest to the toe of the shoe.

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Jeffrey Chen/Demand Media

Reverse directions and lace in a criss-cross manner back up the shoe, using only the eyelets you skipped on your downward lace. Lace through the third, fifth and seventh eyelets, then tie the shoe.