The six boots heel designs

When six introduced custom made LaDuca boots in 2019 they also introduced designs to the rhinestones on the heels which had previously been only a few scattered over the heel and boot. The original heel designs were created by Crystalled by Jane who continues to make the UK boots, and made the early cruise boots. The same designs have been replicated (with some small variation) by John Kristiansen NY or LaDuca for US productions, Norwegian Creative Studios for recent cruise casts, and Sydney Diamanté for Australia, a few flat boots that were added post opening were made by the wardrobe departments.

Rhinestones started all as Swarovski but have recently moved to Preciosa or a mix of both. The most common rhinestone size is 5 mm (SS20 in swarovski sizing) but some cruise boots have used a bigger size.

This is not meant to be a color guide. Crystal rhinestones are made to catch the light and show a variety of shades so using a single color would always be a misrepresentation, crystals will also look different in studio, stage and backstage light making figuring out colors even harder. On top of that the colors used for the boots are constantly changing between productions and even within the same cast.

While most boots now use the same design in the heel and straps previous straps used bigger rhinestones, studs or no rhinestones at all.

Aragon:Diagonal lines in three different shades of gold. Original design was one row of each color and newer ones have two of each.

Boleyn:Squares in white and one or two shades of green. Original design was 2x2 squares alternating between light and medium green with white outlines. US productions do white 2x2 squares with green outlines. Newer UK boots changed to 3x3 squares. Australia and NCS still use the small green squares with white outline. Colors are usually light and medium green shades, but darker ones and light teal have been used.

Seymour:Vertical lines in two shades of light grey or white and one dark grey. The two light stripes look like the same color as shades tend to be very simmilar.

Cleves:Two rows of zig zag lines in red and white. On thin straps they do white base with red zig zag or red base with white zig zag.

Howard:Diagonal lines or diamonds in white and two shades of pink. Diagonals alternate one row from each color. Diamonds are 5 rhinestones wide and tall with one white row vertically between them and two horizontally. UK and NCS use diamonds while US and Australia diagonals. The colors have been a wide range of pink shades with a few having purple or orange.

Parr:Solid bands. Bands 5 rhinestones wide alternating two colors. Have been blue and white/silver or blue and metallic silver. Before 2021 Parr boots didn’t have rhinestones on the straps. This design is no longer in use, being last seen in Bliss 3.0.

Parr (continued): Solid blue or diamonds. The solid blue has been used exclusively in Australia. The diamonds follow the same pattern as the Howard diamonds. In the UK the diamonds are two shades of blue simmilar to the costume colors while in the US there have been a variety of shades including greyish blues and purple.

Black alt: Lines or two different styles of diamonds. The lines were the original design used until 2020; this alternate a single white line with two lines of grey and black. The diamonds originally folllowed the Howard style with a new one being introduced in 2021. The new one has only one row of white rhinestones separating the diamonds in both directions.

Teal alt: Squares. Originally 2x2 squares in different shades of teal separated by white lines. More recent boots have changed to 3x3 squares in the same colors. Rhinestones have been a variety of shades of teal

Orange alt: Diamonds. Originally orange boots had the same pattern as Howard and Parr with two shades of orange and white outlines. Recently they have moved to the new diamond format with single rhinestone outlines with diamonds in orange and white and black outlines.

Pink alt: The original pink boots had the usual diamonds but rotated. Instead of one rhinestone separating the diamonds vertically and two horizontally, these had two vertically and one horizontally. From the single closeup we have of this pair it seems it had one single light pink color and white.

Pink alt (continued): The newer pink boots changed to the new diamond format with only one line of rhinestones separating the diamonds. The color also changed to white and lilac instead of pink.

Silver alt: A design of white crosses (with 2 rhinestones on each side) with black squares in between them.

Broadway alternates: The original Broadway alts got boots with principal designs in black, white and grey. Nicole has Aragon diagonal stripes, Courtney Boleyn squares and Mallory diamonds.

Broadway alternates (continued): Keirsten has Cleves zig zag. Keri got custom boots almost at the end of her principal run, while the design is vertical lines as Seymour. She has two straps which is not the US Seymour style, making us suspect she might have alt boots instead. During cruise rehearsals a few boots in this b/w style have been spotted. This suggests that Bliss 2.0 (and potentially the cancelled original Breakaway 2.0 and Getaway 1.0) alts had boots in the Broadway alt style, but since we never got any clear photos of their finished boots it is impossible to be sure. This style is apparently discontinued now.

Alternates:Recently alts who wear principal costumes have a new style of boots with white heels and interchangeable straps with the main designs. While the heels seem to be all white its been mentioned that the UK ones use two different shades and a few US boots seem to have at least two aswell this would create a little more depth to the design under stagelights. The three possibilities are principal designs in two shades of white crystals (possibly spotted in Leesa Tulley’s boots), all white, or two colors scattered accross the heel.

cassie silva made her six debut as cleves today!!!