The All-Inclusive Shoe & Boot Thread

Called a Boot Jack. Easy to make yourself.
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I decided to break out a pair of dark brown Oxfords today. I recently acquired two pairs at different price brackets. I usually have Loake 1880's, but these from the Shoemaker range were in the sale.


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I am a fan of both Loake and Cheaney ( the brands in the pics). I have one Shoemaker, the Thames semi-brogue. A great shoe. About 13 years old and in great shape. Topeyed from day 1.A pic from the net. But the same condition as mine.
 

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The Shooman said:
I spoke to Tibor recently and asked him a series of questions. He wears his formal attire everyday regardless of the surroundings, even on the bus. He also wears it to work (he doesn't do law enforcement anymore). Same with this Andy bloke at S.F, he even wears a dinner jacket every Friday and wore it to Cosco. These lads don't care what anyone thinks, they just do their own thing.

Thruth Thruth I reckon you should wear tails and a to hat to work, see how it goes. You'd certainly look like a big daddy then.
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I think Tibor riding the bus says everything.
 
fxh said:
RMW make some airport friendly plastic shanks in a range of styles. Being elastic sided, as we call Chelsea’s, they are also easy to slip on and off.

Here elastic sided boots, correct pronunciation ‘lastic, are largely seen as country or work boots.

Thats not strictly true as a well fitting pair of RMWs can be very hard to get off. And we would have a special boot remover on the veranda on a farm to take off boots. I’ll post a pic if I can find one. Essentially just a bit of widish, not too thick plank wood with a big V cut in the end to grip your heel and pull.
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I have one of these.
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florisgreen said:
The best of Philippe Atienza:

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And the worst:

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The problem with bespoke makers, often times the customer's taste is inversely proportional to his wealth. The maker has no say in what is being commissioned and you end up with atrocities like that. That's why I just tend to talk about the level of craftsmanship displayed by shoemakers and not really the style of what they are asked to make.
 
Bardamu said:
The problem with bespoke makers, often times the customer's taste is inversely proportional to his wealth. The maker has no say in what is being commissioned and you end up with atrocities like that. That's why I just tend to talk about the level of craftsmanship displayed by shoemakers and not really the style of what they are asked to make.
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An oft overlooked reality.
 
Sammy Ambrose said:
I am a fan of both Loake and Cheaney ( the brands in the pics). I have one Shoemaker, the Thames semi-brogue. A great shoe. About 13 years old and in great shape. Topeyed from day 1.A pic from the net. But the same condition as mine.
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I have Cheaney, Barker Handcrafted, and Loake. My Loakes are 1880's apart from the Wadhams above. They only have half an insole. I would like to try the Legacy or Export grade.
 
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My John Lobb Camborne in Pewter Misty Calf 7000 last, RTW:

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The colour is actually more a brown than a grey. Not a fan of the "marbled" look such as in the "Museum" leathers, but the "Misty" is more discreet and pleasant to me.

I also have these Saunton in Green Misty Calf 7000 last, RTW:

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As you can see, after years of polishing the colour is pretty uniform.
 
Panama said:
I went Cheaney, the half inner sole is irritating on the Loake. I was going to pick up a pair of insoles but forgot. I have no idea why the insole doesn't cover the toe box...
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It's actually more frequent to have a half insole than a whole one, but, as you say, you can easily fix it.
 
Panama said:
I went Cheaney, the half inner sole is irritating on the Loake. I was going to pick up a pair of insoles but forgot. I have no idea why the insole doesn't cover the toe box...
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This pisses me off so much. I have almost no shoe where the maker has extended the sock liner up until the front. Except Edward Green who use a very nice, thick liner on top. Vass, too. Every other shoo I can think of at the moment at any price point: no.

is it so difficult to invest €5 more in a shoo?
 
Halberstram said:
This pisses me off so much. I have almost no shoe where the maker has extended the sock liner up until the front. Except Edward Green who use a very nice, thick liner on top. Vass, too. Every other shoo I can think of at the moment at any price point: no.

is it so difficult to invest €5 more in a shoo?
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Don't get me started, most RTW makers are all about cutting corners. Sometimes it's just silly, like when it comes to heel stiffeners, some brands don't feel like using celastic is cheap enough, they have to use the cheapest celastic available. I mean, I get it, it's all about economies of scale and all that shit but too many makers are just going too far.
EDIT: I love Lobb Paris, but they are a good example of build quality going down just to cut corners, it's lucky they get that sweet category 1 grade A leather from Hermès, because the way the shoes are built has not improved over the years.
 
Bardamu said:
I mean, I get it, it's all about economies of scale and all that shit but too many makers are just going too far.
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Yes, and we are talking about high-range ready-to-wear shoes, not cheap, industrial ones. It's a shame that prestigious brands use plastic in their products.
 
florisgreen said:
It's actually more frequent to have a half insole than a whole one, but, as you say, you can easily fix it.
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I had to check on this. Loake has half insole with writing on it. After that seems to be leather with a leather stamp visible. Trickers similar. Crockett and Jones handgrade the insole extends the length of the shoe.

It does not bother me and I never gave it much thought.
 
florisgreen said:
Yes, and we are talking about high-range ready-to-wear shoes, not cheap, industrial ones. It's a shame that prestigious brands use plastic in their products.
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With cheap industrial ones it’s sometimes hilarious. Like they boast about the durability of Goodyear and all the usual shit but they cut corners on others things and it negates what they might have done well. For example let’s take a brand like Meermin, they go to the trouble of using real leather bends for their heel block while salpa is the more cost effective measure (a cobbler can easily replace a heel block anyway). They also use fairly thick insoles (for their price range) and boast about it. All that is just fine, but the celastic they use is among the cheapest in the industry. Down the line who cares if you have the best heel block in your price range if the celastic you use is shit. It’ll rot away or break long before any other part of the shoe. It might make sense to them from a business/economic point of view, but from the build quality… it’s debatable.

EDIT: talking about salpa in heel blocks, VASS, what the fuck were you thinking?
 
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Is Vass using plastic as a heel stiffener? I remember having read something (primary source unknown) about leather fiberboard.
 
Oh yeah I am pretty sure Vass uses salpa for the heel stiffeners. On their heel blocks they used to have full leather bends and now they also went to salpa. Salpa = leather board it's just a different name for it if some people were wondering.
 
Bardamu said:
Oh yeah I am pretty sure Vass uses salpa for the heel stiffeners. On their heel blocks they used to have full leather bends and now they also went to salpa. Salpa = leather board it's just a different name for it if some people were wondering.
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Thanks, I wasn't aware of what salpa is.
 
The cost of rebuilding leather heels with my cobbler is about €40, I estimate. What I‘m more concerned with is if they use leather inside as a heel stiffener as it is an irreplaceable part.
 
Very few RTW makers use leather toe caps. It's a pretty difficult process to industrialize. A shoemaker takes about 40 minutes to an hour to mold and fit a leather toe cap and it's pretty labor intensive (a shoemaker might not have too much problem doing it, but your average shoe factory worker is often not that skilled). That doesn't work well when you are a high volume expensive brand. I am thinking of Green or Lobb for example, they both use celastic because I think time wise it's the easiest for them. They already take about 7 to 9 hours to make a shoe, (not counting drying time) they don't want to spend a whole hour just for the toe cap. I mean, if they really wanted to do it, they probably could, but the price would go up so much that you'd be better off going bespoke with a non famous shoemaker.
That being said, the very old celastic toe caps, were virtually indestructible. They were real cockroaches because they were using acetone (or some other chemical, I don't quite remember) and they would last forever, but for a reason or another it stopped being used. (Maybe it got banned or something).
 
As much as I would like a natural, authentic material on my toe caps, I’ll admit: I’ve never had any problems with the durability of them. The heel stiffeners are more interesting to me for two reasons: firstly, they are very important to the fit of the shoe. Secondly, I have a lightly protruding bone on my heels, so an honest heel would alleviate my painful problems quickly and, especially, in the long run.

So far, I’ve felt Vass sits much better on my heels than any other shoe. I am convinced, it‘s not that much the heel shape but the used material. I bet it’s at least fiberboard leather. That’s something I apparently have to be happy about.
 
Halberstram said:
As much as I would like a natural, authentic material on my toe caps, I’ll admit: I’ve never had any problems with the durability of them.
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For me it's not about durability (even though it's obviously important), but, as you say, about having an authentic, natural material in my shoes, especially, as already said, at those price points. John Lobb, Edward Green, Gaziano&Girling all put their price tags above €1,000, so I think they have a sufficient margin to afford a small, great enhancement such as the use of exclusively natural and worthy materials. If it were not the case (I highly doubt it) and their margin is too slim, I'd be glad to pay the eventual surcharge.
 
Bardamu said:
The problem with bespoke makers, often times the customer's taste is inversely proportional to his wealth. The maker has no say in what is being commissioned and you end up with atrocities like that. That's why I just tend to talk about the level of craftsmanship displayed by shoemakers and not really the style of what they are asked to make.
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Yes, it is easy to mess things up if you don't know what you are doing. Those casual leathers would have been better on a wide welted brogue and not a slick dress shoe, it doesn't match.

Also trying to create your own shaped last is risky (combining the shape of various lasts). I made that mistake before l was truly ready, and l know another bloke who spent $$$$$ on alligator and never wore them because he got clown shoos.
 
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Bardamu said:
Oh yeah I am pretty sure Vass uses salpa for the heel stiffeners. On their heel blocks they used to have full leather bends and now they also went to salpa. Salpa = leather board it's just a different name for it if some people were wondering.
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Do you know how long Vass have been using the salpa for? I was wondering the same thing because my more recent Vass are more hard and stiff at the back of the heel where-as my old ones are more flexible. Same goes with the fiberboard heels, easy to spot, the recent Vass have two different colours of leather on the heels where-as the older ones were all one uniform colour. It's a pity.
 
Sammy Ambrose said:
My footwear for tomorrow. Herring Phillip II by Alfred Sargent.
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You have never posted pictures of your shoos before, but so worth the wait. What a delight those are to my eyes. Wonderful footwear Mr Ambrose. Have always wanted a double brogue monkstrap.
 
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