I went to the Meermin store in Aoyama today, lots of interesting little bits here and there -
a) the store was 'nice' in an Aoyama, Tokyo kind of way, but the merchandise itself was just here, there, and everywhere. The feature wall when walking in were a bunch of samples and cheap shoes not shown on the website. A lot of them were pretty puke-worthy but that's what Japanese salarymen of a certain level like, too.
b) lots of colorful cheap suede shoes for men and women. Not Meermin imprint, something else... which brings me to another point:
c) there were a ton of imprints, I think I counted at least 5 or 6 imprint brands along the lines of "xxxxx by Meermin" - some were good, some were tacky, again, some were cheap suede shoes (like <$80 things)
d) One wall had 'Carmina for Meermin' - so I guess these were Carmina-make, Carmina lasted shoes. They were really nice. Didn't have any designs I liked much though, and they were too expensive for what I'd spend there - but still far cheaper than what you can normally find in Tokyo for that quality. The imprints had both logos in full size.
e) I think I saw a few pairs of the regular line, but again, so many alternate imprints and stuff that they were all mixed together, away from the Linea Maestros - so the cheap ones just left me with the impression of various strikes against them, didn't like what I saw there so I left those be.
f) Linea Maestro were nice. Not really a fan of any of the stock makes though. Norwegian welt was impressive, not my thing though. They had the Adelaide style in brown on the Vil last (you can see it on the last chart) and I tried it on in 8, fit perfectly actually. I just don't want to wear a last that pointy. It was just very extreme. I tried on New Rey in 7.5UK and it was too small, maybe by a quarter size. For reference, C+J in 7.5UK is too big on me, maybe by a quarter to half size or so, so the size differential is definitely at least a half a size, if not closer to a full size on the New Rey vs C+J 348 around that size point, I think. In other words, I'd be tempted to roll the dice and size up a full size to 8.5UK to match the C+J 7.5UK on #348. New Rey is attractive enough as a last, though.
Overall though, the brick and mortar store was very different than I expected I guess, didn't expect to see all the cheap stuff and samples on the floor like that. I'm definitely going to MTO some Linea Maestros though, I'd really like an Adelaide in the tan shell, New Rey last.
