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Normally box calf leather is associated with a nice shiny finish, but one can also do box calf in an almost matte finish. This was more common back in the days, which this pair of bespoke Yohei Fukuda made in a vintage Ilcea leather is evident of.
To make a well-executed contrasting sole stitch is an artform. Normally, you either darken the entire sole edge and seam, or you leave all natural coloured. When one do it the middle way and darken the edge and part of the welt but leave the stitching light coloured, it’s tricky to make it neat looking – which makes it all the more lovely when achieved well.
Usually exotics aren’t really my thing, but this exquisite vintage lizard leather in a subtle dark brown really spoke to me. The pair is made by the Italian shoemaker Calzoleria Carlino, who currently runs a campaign with no upcharge on orders of lizard leather for their MTO, MTM or bespoke.
Even if I mainly show off my various welted shoes here on the blog or in social media, I of course have a bunch of other footwear as well, like sidewall stitched sneakers, Blake stitched Belgian loafers or – as pictured here – Sidewall stitched casual shoes. The soft suede and crepe rubber sole makes them really comfortable and suitable for many informal occasions.
Another year in the books, here’s a photo of my given new years celebration footwear (the only black shoes I own, currently) which will accompany me when I say goodbye to 2023 together with family and some good friends. A year that has been filled with both ups and downs.
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Christmas is here again. This time it was even white here in the southern parts of Sweden, which isn’t common nowadays. After having the whole family ill the past week we’ve celebrated at home by ourselves, which still has been lovely. On my feet I’ve had these bespoke Carlino lazymans in vintage pigskin.
I’m currently in Japan, and one of the highlights this far was picking up my fourth pair from the bespoke shoemaker Eiji Murata, alias Main d’Or. An exquisite pair of split toe derbies in a medium brown embossed grain leather, made to the same extremely high standard as he’s known for.
During the course of time various trends have come and gone also within the world of classic shoes. Often these are more special stuff which is seen as cool and beautiful during some time, but then reaction comes and the opposite opinion becomes the ruling opinion. Spade soles are a good example of this. Also briefly about a new online calendar gathering shoe and clothing trunk shows around the world.
To convince customers to choose to buy your shoes – out of a huge amount of options – one have to do all one possibly can. Not only to make the most lovely looking shoes one can achieve, one also have to display them the best possible way, be it on a website or in a physical store. Here’s a lovely example of the latter – a highly memorable display.
Certainly aesthetically pleasing, albeit maybe not the most feet accommodating shape, but the backs of the now sadly deceased Italian shoemaker Riccardo “Freccia” Bestetti certainly stood out. This photo is of a sample where the shape was even more exaggerated, but also on regular customer shoes the backs were very curvy.
