Last week, I was desperate to buy a stiletto-heeled, shiny black, thin-strapped sandal (I know – totally gorgeous, huh?). I headed to a shop where I found a wide variety of black stylish sandals, but not one pair was exactly what I wanted: I found one pair with a pointy heel that were silver coloured instead of black, I found a strappy pair but the heel was blocked – I even found a pair that was strappy and pointy-heeled but they were matte black, not shiny.

If you have a look at any of your handbags or shoes, you might feel something is missing or there’s something extra that doesn’t belong. It often happens that you get to choose from a wide variety of colors, sizes and styles. Even so, you don’t always get what you want.

There’s always a small compromise. Perhaps you didn’t want that silver stone on your sandals, or you wished your handbag had a bronze buckle. What to do? Do you compromise and get something that isn’t really what you want?

As it turns out, gone are the days when you had to compromise on your choice, because now you can have exactly what you want – for a price. If you really don’t want to compromise, just pay a few more bucks (and by ‘a few’ I mean ‘a lot’) and you can get a customised sandal of your choice, a real version of your imagination.

Customisation is possible to a great extent. If you’re buying Arabic style gents’ sandals, you can decide the colour and shape of the buckle style, the colour of the leather and the type of material, say ostrich or snake leather. You can even get your existing stuff customised or renovated.

But while you don’t have to compromise on style, if you decide to customise, you’ll have to compromise – on the price. Because turning imagination into reality doesn’t come cheap.

It’s enough to make a girl go crazy.

Amna Siddiqui, age 17