My latest new pair is these lovely bespoke wholecuts made in a nubuck alligator, from the Italian maker Calzoleria Carlino. It’s my kind of exotic shoe, relatively toned down and versatile. Here’s a bunch of photos of the pair. May serve as inspiration, since the company currently run their annual campaign where you can order MTO or bespoke (also remotely) in alligator or crocodile leather at no upcharge compared to standard calf.
Calzoleria Carlino is no new acquaintance for Shoegazing readers. I’ve written a buyer’s guide following the making of my first remote bespoke pair made by them, a lazyman in vintage pigskin, and a picture special on a lizard leather derby. They are based in Sassuolo, where the workshop is run by Riccardo Cianci who is the grandson of Carlino who founded the workshop in 1958. They are now six people in total in the workshop, who also offer shoe repairs as they’ve always done, and has also taken over the bespoke department of the classic Italian bespoke shoemaker Stivaleria Savoia in Milan. The company is known for doing a lot of remote bespoke shoes, and for constantly bringing out interesting new leather offerings, everything from fine vintage leathers to cool exotics.
Ahead of their annual alligator and crocodile leather campaign where they remove the upcharge, they offered to make me a pair. This year they for the first time also introduce nubuck versions, where they sand down and dye crust alligator hides themselves. The hides are primarily sourced from a top-tier Italian tannery, with whom Carlino has built an excellent relationship over the years, and due to the long time planning they can get quality hides at great prices, making this yearly promotion possible. It’s mostly American alligator used, with some exceptions including porosus crocodile, and they always use two carefully matched bellies from two different animals for their pairs. Carlino’s current really competitive prices are €1,950 for fully handmade MTO, and €2,650 for bespoke or remote bespoke. And now during the campaign the prices are the same for croc and gator (limited stock though). They just launched a new website making it much easier to see models, order options and other info.
The pair I decided to go with was a classic alligator style, a wholecut, which suits the soft square toe bespoke last I have with them well. As mentioned the hide is sanded and dyed by Carlino, and is a low saturated brown that makes them stand out relatively little for being an exotic shoe. It’s about as toned down an alligator shoe can be, which is exactly what I wanted. It features old-school Italian non-transparent sole and heel edge dye, a bevelled ridge fiddle back waist, and a unique decorative stitching at the breast of the heel that I haven’t seen before. The clean making was done by Joseph Boykin, who’ve been at Carlino for about three years. With this being my third pair, there’s not much to do to improve fit, but we did some very small tweaks on the lasts. I also received a matching belt, also made in the Sassuolo workshop.
Below are first some shots taken in the workshop during the making, and then my own taken of the finished pairs.
Nice! Never been tempted my alligator before, these changed that.
That’s amazing value, the quality of the nubuck alligator on level with that of big makers, would you say?
Tim: Thanks! Hehe glad to hear 🙂
Jon: Yeah a lot of bang for the buck for sure. To be honest, I’m not experienced in judging quality of alligator leather, but to me it looks good on this pair for sure. But you can see that it’s been sanded by them, it’s a little bit rougher than machine buffed ones done by for example HCP. Personally I like the character of this though.
It look perfect on your feet
Lolex: Thank you!
Thanks to your article Jesper, I’ve managed to snag a bespoke pair of these and am flying to Modena shortly for my first fitting. As a value proposition these certainly beat the likes of Gaziano & Girling on price; I had a pair of MTO Pisa loafers from them in suede with a bit of alligator nubuck trim earlier this year which cost me more than these full alligator bespoke shoes from CC! Maybe that Royal Warrant is why they can charge as much as they do?
Pcaluta: Nice, hope they will turn out well!
There’s a lot of reasons for price differences like that, a company like G&G spend much more on branding, stores (Savile Row…) etc, salaries, rents etc is much higher in the UK, and so on. Prices for bespoke shoes have in general been much higher in the UK and France compared to Italy and Austria, with Germany sort of in between. Then Hungary, Poland and Romania even lower, and so on. This old article gives (where prices aren’t really up to date though) gives a good idea: https://shoegazing.com/2017/08/20/buyers-guide-bespoke-prices/
Jesper Ingevaldsson: Thanks and I’m sure they will – I mentioned your blog when Riccardo asked how I found them, he was very pleased!
I certainly agree with the reasons you’ve given for such a wide price discrepancy but my view is that I don’t really feel as if paying significantly more for UK brands is really worth it unless one must have that specific “English style”, of course. Even though I’m currently based in London myself, I’ve now travelled to a couple places in Eastern Europe (like Petru&Claymoor and Maftei for example) as well as to Italy (A Meccariello) for bespoke shoes and since experiencing what they have to offer no longer see the need to patronise the UK brands any more, speaking from a value for money and style perspective.
PCaluta: Nice! 🙂
I can understand your view, though I happily support all the markets I can. And TBH, without the bespoke shoe businesses in the UK and France the bespoke shoe businesses in the rest of the world would be much poorer, they do so much to educate shoemakers and keep the whole industry alive in many ways.