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 – this is the place!
Welcome!
G'day everyone, Ian Fieggen here, also known as “Professor Shoelace”. I'm a real human living in Melbourne, Australia. This website has no “A.I.” content – it's all built with “H.I.” plus Human Effort over more than two decades.
Welcome to “Ian's Shoelace Site” – made by one human, for all humans.
Table of Contents
Lacing Shoes
Contains over 100 × step-by-step shoe lacing tutorials, over 2,700 × shoe lacing photos, plus the interactive “Create-a-Lace” for designing your own lacing.
Tying Shoes
Contains 25 × shoelace knots (including my world's fastest “Ian Knot”), plus info on tying correctly so that they sit straight and stay securely tied – yet can be untied without jamming.
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, 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 ways that you, too, can support Ian.
Connect With Professor Shoelace
Contact Ian Fieggen via e-mail or connect with “Professor Shoelace” via YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or RSS feed.
Search This Site
Looking for something? This website has more than 300 pages – which can be daunting to wade through! Search the whole of Ian's Shoelace Site using Google Custom Search.
Latest Photo
01-Feb-2026
Today's shoe lacing photo was contributed by Guillaume R. in Feb-2026.
Tan boots with white trim laced with black & white Over Under Lacing + Double Helix Lacing.
Front view of Guillaume's lacing comparison, this time with the shoelaces tightened and knotted.
What's New?
Updated “Interviews & Articles”
04-Dec-2025 – During Australia's marriage equality debate, PUMA engaged me to create the “Equality Knot”, then sent a film crew to shoot this “content piece” video.
Updated “Pentagram Lacing”
02-Dec-2025 – Following a visitor request, I added diagrams for the inverted variation of Pentagram Lacing for 7, 6 and 5 pairs of eyelets.
Updated “Shoe Lacing Methods”
28-Nov-2025 – Following a suggestion from a website visitor, I added buttons to filter by either “Shortening” or “Lengthening” methods.
Recent Visitor Feedback
Can't believe that I've been tying my shoelaces wrongly for 50 years! Never too late to learn I guess... many thanks
– Mike B., UK, Feb-2026
Tonight I was having a grand time looking through your shoe lacing tutorials for fun, and then I saw that you actually invented my favorite way to tie my shoes and show off a little bit!
I yelled “HE INVENTED THIS KNOT? I KNOW THAT KNOT!!!” (and scared my cat a little bit hahahaha)
Anyways just wanted to thank you for having a great website, I’m really enjoying it and can’t wait to try out some of the decorative lacing on my boots!
– Selkie, Los Angeles, USA, Feb-2026
When the Canadian Forces' lacing instructions were at best a 2/10 I got referenced to this site and never looked back, thank you.
– Andres S., Canada, Jan-2026
Love the site! Been checking it on occasion for years, and I have been using the Ian [k]not for so long I don't remember how to tie the normal bow. Hadn't occurred to me I could donate until I saw Chris Person's article.
– Baynard N., USA, Jan-2026
I've been a big fan of your site for years though haven't visited for a while. I was sad to hear in an article on Gizmodo that your site income is difficult to maintain, so this is my modest thanks for your site's great content.
– Liam G., UK, Jan-2026