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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.
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.
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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.
In most stores selling classic men’s shoes nowadays, the formal options have been more and more replaced by more casual models, sneakers, light loafers and so on. That’s why it’s nice to visit some shoe stores in the London business districts where still various black oxfords and other more formal footwear are in clear majority on the shelves.
The shoes above all have a really high stitch density on the sole seams, with from the left 18, 16 and 14 spi (stitches per inch). Already the lowest one is a high spi for bespoke shoes, but Eiji Murata of Main d’Or isn’t really an ordinary maker. Now, the 18 spi version doesn’t really go well on actual customer shoes, with today’s leathers it becomes too fragile, but 16 spi I have on my latest pair from him.
It’s a model that every bespoke shoemaker and dress shoe brand have to have in their line-up – the black plain cap toe oxford. That doesn’t mean they have to be made to the traditional standards just to be beautiful, you can make something your own way and still have it classic, wearable and timeless. This shoe by Clematis Ginza is a good example.
