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Christmas is a time for traditions, and one such is sharing the yearly shoe Christmas photo here on Shoegazing. This year me and my wife have gathered large parts of both our families in our house here in Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast, so it’s been hectic but lovely (we Swedes celebrate on Christmas eve). On my feet I’ve had my bespoke Yohei Fukuda special adelaide oxfords.
More or less all sports shoes today are various versions of sneakers. It makes sense, they have been for a long time, and when it comes to function and performance it’s suitable. With golf shoes, it’s a different thing though, it’s essentially walking shoes. Yet almost all golf shoes today are made similarly to other sports shoes, instead of how they were made up until the 80’s or so with proper Goodyear welted constructions. There are exceptions though, luckily.
Shoes are made in pairs, that’s been the case throughout history. As such, they are expected to look the same as each other. Even the cheapest shoes have rather high demands of a sync between each other, and then of course the higher the price the higher the demand. For a pair of really expensive bespoke shoes it’s expected that they are more or less identical down to the smallest detail.
This beautiful chelsea boot by the previous world champion of shoemaking, Wataru Shimamoto of Orma Shoemaker, is made in a very special Japanese leather called Shironameshi, made with an over 1,000 years old tanning technique, that use only salt and rapeseed oil.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
