Shoe Of The Day

What was inspiring about Stefano Bemer was his love and obsession for being able to find every kind of possible leather and material to make his shoes with. This pair in particular was made using shark skin leather. I always had a love/hate relationship with shark skin leather during my apprenticeship with him. Depending on the shoe's model and the cut of it I either loved or hated the fact that it was made with shark skin. This model I actually really liked. The picture may not give it much justice but it's feel and texture is unlike any other skin that I came encounter with. I particularly liked it in a burgundy color and thought that the burgundy really brought out the details of the skin. He used many other skins that I will post for you in future articles but for now please enjoy this because it is not too often that you find a shoe maker who uses these obscure leathers.

Shoes With Mulitple Materials

In a time where almost everything has been done before, it must be challenging for a shoe designer to come up with something that is fresh and unseen. One of the ways to do this is to create shoes with multiple materials for the upper leather. This alone, brings out an infinite array of possibilities. And while this concept has been utilized by many artisans and designers over the years, it is by far still an untapped direction of design. Obviously, with the way the world is, regarding it's strict dress codes in work environments, it may be seen as impractical to make shoes that would not be regarded as acceptable professional footwear. Yet I would work toward the contrary: 'Lets make more so that we can slowly start breaking the barrier to strict dress codes!'













Shoes Above By: Dimitri Bottier
Shoes At Top By: Gaziano & Girling

Above is a beautiful example of a fairly conservative shoe that could easily be assimilated into the working society. That little touch of detail sets this shoe miles apart from the average, boring black shoe that finds itself looking like all the rest. Yet why don't we see more of this??? Because people are too afraid to step out of their comfortable, little bubble and grow a pair by doing what they want and not conforming to what is acceptable. So many times have grown men came up to me (while I was wearing my teal blue shoes) and said in a soft voice so that no one would hear, "Man, I wish that I could wear those!" Shit, why can't you? This is what I always thought. What is stopping people? Themselves mostly and secondly, society. It's a shame, people should feel more free to dress how they want and not be judged!














This pair above is a pair of Dolce & Gabbana's that I personally own. If you can't tell, they consist of gray patent and blue velour, two obviously very different materials. I remember the day I purchased these. I was working on the men's shoe floor at the Downtown Seattle Flagship Nordstrom and my coworker had called me and said, "Justin, we just received a new pair of D&G's that you are going to want, I am going to put one aside for you." So when I got to work, surely enough I bought my size and then sold one to my manager, my friend in the women's shoe department and told him to sell one to his best friend. Of the five that came in I bought, sold or referred the sale of 4 of them. What's is funny is that this always happens too. When Nordstrom bought something unique and out of the ordinary, people bought it quickly, yet we go forever without getting exciting things and constantly see the same boring stuff. I think that if more department stores took more risks with unique things, than styles would change and people would start getting more of the things that they have always wanted but never had enough guts to get. And just to point it out but not to offend anyone's sexual orientation, the 3 other men as well as myself are all straight men. This just goes to show that the belief that certain shoes should or could only be worn by certain individuals is crap!!! This is bullshit and is not only insulting to stylish straight men but also to non-straight men.











Left Shoe By: Dimitri Bottier
Right Shoe By: Marc Guyot

The two shoes above are both by French shoemakers. What I love about French shoemakers, is their fearlessness to push the envelope and come out with some of the craziest shoe styles/combinations that you can imagine. And whats great about it is that they do it well and sell these new and imaginative styles to many people yet it has just not quite caught on to the mass market here in America. I only hope that as time goes on their presence will become stronger in the American market, where more and more people will wear things that set them apart from the rest. You can help start this by getting something that no one else you know has a pair of. Guaranteed, if you do this, you will get lots of compliments and feel good about being different from everyone else! Be sure to check out the links that I add on all of my posts of the makers of the shoes in my pictures. Don't be afraid to expand your horizons!!!

The Appreciation Of A Shoe's Details

Shoes By: Gaziano & Girling

In the bespoke shoe world, many small details are added to the shoe to set it apart from an any ordinary ready-to-wear pair. One of these details is called a 'fiddleback waist' or 'violina,' in Italian. This particular detail happens to be my favorite as well as my least favorite. As a customer I love the symmetry of it and how it plays to the shoe's shape and curves by accentuating their features. As a shoemaker, it is the hardest detail to add to the shoe. It is time consuming, has to be precise in its shape and needs to match perfectly on each shoe so that one does not differ from the other. This is not easy to do, but when done well it is very much worth the effect that the detail provides for both the customer and the maker. It is a sign of pride in your craftsmanship and a sign of elegance in your shoe.











There are many steps to this process of which I had some pictures to a few of them. This stage above is the very beginning of it, creating the v-shape within mid-sole to produce the effect on the outer sole. As I said before and which you might be able to tell in the pictures, the precision of your drawing on each shoe is immensely important or you will create a pair of shoes with obvious differences between them. You will see in the pictures below that instead of creating a v-shape with a sharp middle point serving as the high point to the waist, I created more of a hump in the middle of the waist. Considering that I used the v-shape on all of the shoes I made before these, I wanted to do something differently for this pair.











Here you will see the finishing effect of the fiddleback. There are many other stages to it that I unfortunately did not have pictures to show you. One of these is when you apply the sole onto the shoe and have to use a piece of glass to thin out the sole's leather to create the beveled waist. This detail was once something that only bespoke shoes offered but as machinery and technology get better I believe that this will find itself spreading more and more into the ready-to-wear industry. Some makers who currently use this feature on their RTW shoes are Gaziano & Girling and John Lobb.













Above are some pictures of my other shoes. On my latest shoe, pictured on the left, I did not apply the v-shape and while I don't regret not doing it, I realized that I much more appreciate the looks of the v-shape on one's sole.

Shoe Of The Day

While this isn't the most exciting shoe in the world, what I really love about it are the details: the brogueing at the top of the vamp and around the heel; the fact that the shoe is constructed with only one or two pieces of leather (it's hard to tell by the picture) and has a smooth vamp; the burnished toe; and the fact that the brogueing on the wing tip and around the vamp is a darker color than the rest of the shoe. The shoe is made by St. Crispins, a Austrian brand who does very beautiful work, which you will definitely see more of in future posts.

Patent Shoes

Used to be that patent leather shoes were only worn with a tuxedo or more rarely, on a very formal occasions with your sharp, black suit but now it's almost as if you cannot go a day without seeing someone wearing a full-on patent leather shoe or at least a shoe with patent leather accents. This all started to change a couple of years ago when the idea of taking formal wear and turning it into casual wear hit the fashion industry. Good thing it did too because it is boring only wearing casual attire during casual settings and formal wear for formal occasions. It is much more interesting to be able to mix and match an outfit with several pieces that are both formal and casual and see how the end result comes out.













Top Shoe: Salvatore Ferragamo
Left Shoe: Dolce & Gabbana
Right Shoe: Common Projects

Now you can find patent shoes in almost every color, some being so bold (like the orange one's below) it would be impressive to see a person who could pull off an outfit that wouldn't leave them looking like a neon light bulb. It's great too because some shoes need that patent leather look to make them cool. The Common Projects high top sneaker above would not be as intriguing had it just been made of blue dyed leather. That extra shine gives it the pop that it needs to product worth paying for. The only downside to patent leather is the fact that it creases so easily and just might eventually crack after repeated use. But like all leather shoes it's inevitable so deal with it or don't go buy patent leather shoes.









Two Shoes By: Pierre Corthay

While i like the fact that dress shoes became readily available in patent leather options other than black, I especially loved that the sneaker industry embraced this concept so well. A well designed patent leather sneaker, to me, is just the best and I especially love wearing the pair that I own by Superga (pictured below). While being a sneaker and obviously going well with casual clothes, I feel like a patent leather version of any sneaker will only allow it to be more easily dressed-up. Don't get me wrong, I would never wear sneakers with a suit but dressed-up in the sense that you can pair them with some sharp jeans, a nice button-up and maybe a casual sport coat.









I also admire it when a women wears a sexy pair of patent leather pumps and since I don't give much love to my female followers I thought that I would add some pictures for all of you to appreciate.

Shoe Of The Day

How often do you see green shoes? Not very often!! And that's what I love about Paul Smith, the creator of these shoes. He is constantly coming up with unique and colorful shoes to add to his collections and while he may use a fairly common brogue like this as his staple style, what's great is that he will change it in so many ways from the color, to the leather and even the texture, for example, velour. A shoe like this can add so many more possibilities to your wardrobe and I am glad that there is someone like Paul Smith, who is so big in the shoe industry, coming up with these concoctions to continually provide us with lively options!

Shoes Of The Day

All I have to say is Edward Green, WOW, and I am envious of the guy that owns these!!

The Most Versatile Shoe - The Brown Full-Brogue

In a man's wardrobe, there are no pants (used for day wear) that a pair of brown full-brogues cannot compliment. You can pair them with jeans, khakis, trousers and even your suits. Not only can you wear them with all these different types of pants you can also pair them with literally every color of pant, except black. Think about all of the possibilities you can put together! Talk about a bang for you buck, right!!? It's the one-stop-shop type of shoe. However, the question is: why don't more men own a pair? Probably because in most people's limited minds, they think that black is the most versatile color and maybe that was true back in the 50's when people only wore black, gray and navy suits. But it's the 21st century and it's no longer stylish to be super conservative and only wear black shoes with navy suits, to wear old man tassel loafers and not have a brown shoe in your collection. On the contrary, IT IS ESSENTIAL to own a brown dress shoe or you have no idea of what you are doing when it comes to dressing yourself!!!









Top Pair: Gaziano & Girling
Left Pair: Edward Green, Photo Courtesy Of: Leffot
Right Pair: Edward Green, Photo Courtesy Of: Leather Soul

Like I have stated before, something about the brogueing gives it a very different feeling to the average dress shoe, a much more casual feeling. Not in the sense that it's too casual to be dressed-up with a suit but more the feeling that it's a beautiful dress shoe that can easily compliment the right pair of jeans or casual khaki type pants. The art of wearing a nice pair of dress shoes with your casual attire is not easy and many times people can take it too far and look like they are trying too hard or just wear a pair of pants and dress shoes that would not go well together to save their life. So what's nice about the brown full-brogue is how much more easier it is create that transition from dress to casual.




















I have posted some pictures for you so that you can see what you can pair brown full brogues with and how simple it is. My shoes are by Paul Smith and the model is called 'Starr.' While mine are a style with a slightly thinner sole, I definitely prefer something a little bit thicker, like the two above by Edward Green. A thicker sole still allows you to dress it up but just makes it even easier to dress it down. From the pictures you can see that it is very easy to wear brown shoes, let alone brogues. They compliment most colors as well as offer great contrast when you play with various shades of brown. A good example of that would be the lighter colored Edward Green shoe, above, paired with a navy suit. The contrast between those two colors will definitely spice up your outfit and have you stand out from the crowd.




















I know I always say that if you don't own such and such then you should definitely get it but if you really don't own a brown brogue, preferably full-brogue, then your wardrobe is seriously lacking on a practical scale. It's like dress clothes purchasing 101: 1. Brown brogues; 2. Black shoes; 3. Navy suit; 4. Gray suit and 5. Black suit. Those alone create an infinite amount of outfits and looks!!!

Shoe Of The Day

This is a beautiful bespoke shoe by Gaziano & Girling that literally represents quality and elegance at it's finest. While I am quite bias towards this shoe, due to my admiration of the fleur de lys symbol, it's beauty still remains quite evident. The shine is one of the best that I have seen. It appears to almost have a mirror like quality and while all bespoke shoes, unless otherwise specified, have a very high shine finish to them, this one in particular stands apart. The coloring is nothing short of amazing and the distinct shape and curvature of the last is also very appealing. I always admire a beautifully made shoe and this one here definitely goes down in the books as a favorite!!

Shoe Of The Day

In case you didn't realize, the sneaker industry is boomin' and is only about to get bigger! Part of that boomin' industry is the young and successful Clae, which is the brand that created this shoe. While this shoe, called the 'Bruce,' comes in several other colors I chose to show the teal colored version just to stress my observation of teal being the color of 2010 in the casual/sneaker shoe industry. Even Sperry has a shoe like this in a similar color. I love the shoe's design: simple, classic with a twist and easy to put on. It doesn't get much better than that and hoping that this shoe stays in the collection, I definitely plan to add it to my wardrobe in the not-so-distant future!! GET ON BOARD WITH TEAL!!!!

Shoe Of The Day

These are brand new Edward Green shoes that just arrived at Leffot in NYC. I just saw his new post on these shoes and I was inspired!! You really don't often see these two colors put together in the same shoe let alone the same outfit and yet these came out beautifully. It just goes to show what some people may think cannot be done, in actuality, can very much be done and done quite well!!! There are very few things in the shoe world more intriguing than a nice pair of two-tones and this pair above validates this statement!!

Gray Shoes - The New Black

Over the past couple of years you might have noticed the uprising of gray dress shoes being introduced by many of the well known Italian fashion labels such as Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo etc as well as some of the other more 'racy' labels from other countries like Paul Smith from England and Magnanni from Spain. While many colors are introduced into a line to be a taste of something different, I feel like gray has become a reoccurring statement through each season as a color that could be in substitute for the commonly used black. And why would it not?









Top Shoes: Aldo Brue
Left Shoe: Magnanni
Right Shoe: Edward Green

Gray is a color that has been used throughout all of fashion's history as a staple color in the wardrobe but has just recently made it's way into the likes of the shoe world. I really can't understand why it took so long. It is not a bright nor racy color, on the contrary it is quite conservative and could easily be used to substitute brown and black shoes considering that there is not much that a gray shoe would not work with. It is such a neutral color that it's contrast against pretty much all other colors, that you find suits in, would provide a nice balance to the look of your outfit. To give examples of how to pair gray shoes with several outfits I have added some pictures below.



















Although it is hard to see the contrast due to my lack of photography skills and not knowing how to properly use a sophisticated camera you can get the idea of how easily it is to substitute a black or brown shoe with that of a gray one. Hopefully you can see that on the left side I paired it with a black suit and on the right side with a navy suit. The only downside to getting gray shoes is finding a nice belt to match them. That, unfortunately, is something that has not caught on yet. You would think that makers would want to make belts to match their unique colored shoes or that department stores buyers would have better communication with each other to make sure that if the shoe department was buying a certain color shoe for the season than the furnishings department would follow suit and get a belt to compliment the shoes. But apparently this simple communication is too hard to ask for.













So above are the shoes that I was wearing, as you can see they are more of a dark gray which made it hard to see the contrast between them and my black and navy suits. For those wondering, they are a model by Ferragamo that is about 3 years old now. Whats also nice about this particular model is the fact that because it is a slip-on it's much easier to also pair with a simple, casual outfit which I also posted below for you to see just how easy it is.



















This outfit is really as basic as it gets and they still go great together. Many people only think that dress style shoes can only be worn for dress type clothing but I think if paired right, a dress shoe can look very sharp with casual clothes. Like I always say, if you don't own a gray shoe than you should be thinking about getting one to compliment your wardrobe. You see here how simple it is to add to your existing wardrobe so you would not even need to get anything else to go with them!