Welcome to Ian's Shoelace Site

Fun, fashion & science in the Internet's #1 website about shoelaces – and home of the Ian Knot, the world's fastest shoelace knot. If you want to lace shoes, tie shoes or learn about shoelaces, “Ian's Shoelace Site” is the place!

Lacing Shoes

The most extensive section of this website, including over 100 × step-by-step shoe lacing tutorials, 2,000 × shoe lacing photos, plus the interactive “Create-a-Lace” for designing your own lacing.

Tying Shoes

Contains 20 × shoelace knots, including my world's fastest “Ian Knot”, plus important info on preventing the “Granny Knot”, which causes shoelaces to sit crooked and come undone.

Learn About Shoelaces

Heaps of knowledge about shoelaces, including their construction, length calculations – even what the tips are called, as well as Ian's interviews, articles, reviews, Q&As and more.

About

Information about this website and the site's author, Ian Fieggen – including Ian's contact details. Also info on this site's sponsors plus various ways that you, too, can support Ian.

Connect With Professor Shoelace

Contact Ian Fieggen via e-mail or connect with “Professor Shoelace” via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Gfycat or RSS feed.

Search This Site

Looking for something? This website has more than 250 pages – which can be daunting to wade through! Search the whole of Ian's Shoelace Site using Google Custom Search.

Latest Photo

24-Oct-2020 – Shoe Lacing Photo of the Week

Black DC sneakers with white trim laced with graduated grey to white combination of Lattice Lacing and Straight Bar Lacing (from an anonymous contributor).

The gradient creates a particularly interesting effect in the Lattice.

More Shoe Lacing Photos

Latest Animation

27-Sep-2020 – Drawing Shoelace Knots

I've spent the past couple of months updating the Shoelace Knot illustrations, re-drawing all of them in high definition for my Android app. This animation shows some of the complexity of creating such illustrations – in particular the shadows. Consider the fact that as two laces twist around and pass over or under each other, each takes turns casting a shadow on the other!

Download & share

NOTE: This animation may be downloaded (eg. by long-press or right-click) and shared freely. Be quick and get it while you can!

Latest Video

08-Oct-2020 – Ian's Laces app for Android

This is my first video for some time, showing my Android app that I've been working on for the past few months – Ian's Laces. If you're a perfectionist like me, an app like this is a lot of work, but the end result is something I'm quite proud of!

Watch video: Ian's Laces app for Android

Watch video here

Watch on YouTube

What's New?

Updated “Shoelaces As Seen In The News”

29-Oct-2020 – Added news story about a serious construction site accident, in which untied shoelaces were only partly to blame.

More photo gallery updates

26-Oct-2020 – Updated the galleries for Half and Half Straight Bar and Hexagram Lacing to hi-res photos, plus improved the galleries for Half and Half, Double and Double Sided Lacing with separate sections for the “Standard” photos and “Variation” photos.

Photo gallery updates continued

24-Oct-2020 – The latest photo galleries to be updated to hi-res include End Shortening, Escher, Footbag, Gap, Gippo, Hash and Half and Half Lacing.

Eight more photo gallery updates

22-Oct-2020 – Continuing my hi-res photo gallery updates, I've now completed Cyclone Fence, Dense Checker, Display Shoe, Double, Double Back, Double Cross, Double Helix and Double Sided Lacing.

Updated another eight photo galleries

19-Oct-2020 – Continuing my hi-res photo gallery updates, I've now completed CAF Combat Boot, Cascade, Checkerboard, Chevron, C.I.A., Commando, Corset and Criss Cross Lacing.

Recent Website Feedback

I'm in the UK with a brand new pair of Dr Martens. I found your site while trying to find a lacing method that didn't cross over the tongue as I find it puts pressure on my foot.

I am blown away!!

I didn't realise there were so many beautiful ways to lace and tie.

I didn't realise that my first knot is the reason my laces often come undone. Not anymore! And I have beautifully horizontal bows.

Thank you so much - I have purchased your app.

– Anne E., Oct-2020

I threw a bit into your tip jar; hope it helps. Though I don't visit often, fieggen.com is uniroinically one of my favourite corners of the internet. Low on the modern-web-BS, you've got the thing you like and you're gonna talk aaalll about it, and I like how you accept corrections (like the bit about discovering that the “Ian [Secure] Knot” isn't a new knot).

– Jack K., Jan-2020

I'm using your lace site for a long time, almost about ten years and I absolutely love it. I cannot show how happy I am to come across such a wonderful and useful, purely informative website.

– Sinan C., Turkey, Nov-2019

I stumbled across your shoelace site and was frankly astonished at the level of detail and effort. I would go so far as to say this website serves as one of the best compilation of knowledge regarding shoelaces the World has ever seen.

– Ethan G., Jul-2019

Just wanted to say thank you for your shoelace site. It's so well documented! And organized. AND thorough! It's like the encyclopeadia britannica of shoelaces :)

– Philip B., Jun-2019