Mr B's Blake boots vs Grenson Sharp/Fred - Page 10

I have seen a guy today in my office wearing them. I had no idea Aldo makes men shoes !! Anyway I asked him where he got them from to my surprise he said they are from Aldo (i was thinking more of English boots). Came home done a online search then searched on SF. Beautiful so much info on these Mr B's on sf. Tempted now. Not sure prices here in Australia. The guy at work mentioned something around 200+ didn't pay attention as I was expecting them to be garbage . Anyway they have 30% off sale in Sydney till next Sunday.
Now second problem how could I pop in to a Aldo store ....store full with chicks ! And carrying the big Aldo box al the way from city to my home 50 min train ride.Hmm.......

I would be less afraid of entering a woman's store than somone that I know running into me and saying "I knew your shoes were not EG!"

To fix this problem, stop by your favorite men's store and ask your friendly SA for an extra bag.

Anyone post pictures of the grey version yet?

This new bordeaux color showed up on the website today.  I ordered the brown ones because the lady I spoke with on the phone said that this color didn't exist.  Now, less than a week later its right there on the website.  The shoe itself is very nice.  I'm very pleased with the comfort and overall design, now I've got to go through the hassle of returning them and waiting on a new pair.

Ya, in general those are pretty sloppy. Must have been made by a drunk employee or noob. Reminds me of the bad stitching when you see a fake Burberry or something.

Not much you can do other than accept them as is or swap them out. The Pencil mark looks a bit like glue. An eraser shouldnt hurt.

I went to one of the aldo stores today and saw the bordeaux colored boots. I found them to be nice in color. The other colors brown and cognac were in stock as well. The brown seems to be a consistant chocolate color while the cognac seems to differ depending on the shoe. The construction seems great for 175 but the peforations seem pretty sloppy as do the color of some of the shoes.

I decided to get the shoe and not the boot. I ended up with the gray brogue shoe. The shoe in store was lighter than the one in the box. I ended up hoping ordering one would be lighter instead of taking the one in store. I think that maybe they use the same amount of polish/stain no matter the size of shoe so the smaller sizes seem to be darker then the larger sizes. I had the sales associate bring out a bunch of shoes and sizes to see the color difference.

I do recommend sizing down. This is a nice shoe/boot at this price point but the perforations do seem sloppy but at this price point what else is there?

Thanks for the response, idfnl. I ended up returning the boot and I got them to ship me another pair. To my disbelief, the markings were on that boot too! Brogues were a bit cleaner, but the markings in the back were disappointing. Pictures to come, but you can imagine the same deal.

It seems like the positive reception to the initial batch sparked them to increase production on the boots. It seems like quantity was chosen over quality. I'll send them an email or talk to a manager to see what they can do to repair this situation. After reading over Aldo's mission statement and Mr. B's background story, I feel a bit cheated.

I'll keep you guys posted.

okay that is a nice color, glad they have it for the blake model now.

blows all the other colors away

Anyone see the gray in the US yet?

no but i saw the bordeaux and I'm not all that impressed. I was thinking of buying another pair in this color and left without a thought of it.

I already have a pair of Grenson Fred's in that color

Really want gray...

No, the gray and blue/grays are UK only last I checked. Saw the bordeaux in the store today, and it's not bad, but didn't wow me, either. Maybe if I hit them with some black shoe polish and spiffed them up a bit like my oxblood docs I'll like em more, but it's a solid pass for now.

Blue w/ gray is now on the Aldo website, but no straight gray.

Sydney store charging $219.00 for a pair. waiting for boxing day sale. Hoping for a 50% off sale. Just missed 30% off sale 2 weeks ago .

still both say UK only

To follow up on my previous posts about the messed up boot. Here's the second pair that I received that was also damaged:


Weird marking on the boot. Probably similar deal to the following photos.


Scuffed leather.


Sloppy markings used to place different pieces? Same thing happened to my first boot, but the markings are slightly different. We didn't try using an eraser to it, but leather lotion didn't work - the sales associate tried to clean it off.






I don't know how picky I should be with the brogues, but I don't imagine it should be like this. I understand to some degree that there's perfection in the imperfection with hand-made shoes, but would you count this as the aforementioned?


Would this be glue? I'm not sure how shoes are generally constructed, so I don't know what the darkened substance in the brogues are.


It's not the horribly bad from farther away, but you can still make out that the brogues aren't clean. Some are darker and some are lighter.


Loose thread.

I know I'm being very critical of the boots, but Aldo should be prepared to be scrutinized since they're trying to target a more sophisticated customer (the Styleforumite). It is a handsome boot for a relatively reasonable price, but I don't think they should get away with bad craftsmanship because of the cost. At the very least, the markings on the back and the scuffed leather shouldn't be there - that would automatically classify it as a "seconds" pair. I don't know much about the brogues, but I think that's sloppy work - not perfection in the imperfection. If it were glue, it should be cleaned or at least made consistent throughout the whole boot (all glue-filled or all glue-free).

I called in to customer service to state my case, and they offered me a discount on another pair and they expedited my shipping for free. I ordered the Bordeaux, which I will show you in the next post.

Please chime in if you think I'm being unreasonable or if you can identify what's going on in the brogues.
Edited by joshyle - 12/23/11 at 9:21am