Allen Edmonds Appreciation Thread - reviews, pictures, sizing, etc...

[RogerP]

*Note to mediahound- it IS an Allen Edmonds APPRECIATION thread, not a political/socio-economic ethics debate- so I am pretty sure most people reading this would appreciate it if you would piss off. Start another thread, or just take it outside...

I would hope that does not mean that content is restricted to cheerleading posts only. One can have an appreciation of a brand, but still be critical of its methods or its message. Seems to me that the concerns mediahound raised were stated in both a thoughtful and cogent manner - as was the detailed response by the AE CEO. The sum total of that discussion has been highly informative, IMO. Certainly moreso than yet another "AE are the bestest shoos eveerrrrr!" post.

 

[pudman43]



I do not as yet own any AE shoes.

I have enjoyed reading this thread at length, and as a result have decided to make it a point to buy these shoes in the near future based on aesthetics, quality, and value.  


*Note to mediahound- it IS an Allen Edmonds APPRECIATION thread, not a political/socio-economic ethics debate- so I am pretty sure most people reading this would appreciate it if you would piss off. Start another thread, or just take it outside...

Well said Busa, thank you. I agree, let's move on already. I read, and occasionally participate in, this thread because I love the pics, others' AE experiences, upcoming AE releases, etc. Start an AE bashing thread, but leave this one as truly for the appreciators. J

 

[wdahab]



I would hope that does not mean that content is restricted to cheerleading posts only.  One can have an appreciation of a brand, but still be critical of its methods or its message.  Seems to me that the concerns mediahound raised were stated in both a thoughtful and cogent manner - as was the detailed response by the AE CEO.  The sum total of that discussion has been highly informative, IMO.  Certainly moreso than yet another "AE are the bestest shoos eveerrrrr!" post.

Well said Busa, thank you. I agree, let's move on already. I read, and occasionally participate in, this thread because I love the pics, others' AE experiences, upcoming AE releases, etc. Start an AE bashing thread, but leave this one as truly for the appreciators. J

Hear, hear. I love my AEs. I appreciate them so much that I have only one pair of goodyear welted shoes that *isn't* AE. Polite discourse on this is just as okay here as politely discussing PA cap sizes, whether the bowing issue is wide spread, and whether AE is over polishing/burnishing their shoes.

 

[dancingbear]

Greetings MediaHound–

I’ve been meaning to respond to your “disingenuous” (a strong word) comment for several days but I’ve been tied up.


[Speaking of time constraints, I want express apologies and thanks for your patience to those SF Members who sent special make-up shoe requests to me a couple weeks ago. I should have been smarter about making an offer like that while I was on vacation with family before heading right into a couple of especially busy weeks (including the visit with Jack Nicklaus at Augusta – please see my blog at http://allenedmondsblog.blogspot.com/, if you like golf and the Masters). We now have developed a process internally to respond to your requests on an expedited basis.]

Back to the rationale for our use of the tagline “The Great American Shoe Company” and its sincerity. For the reasons I’m about to outline below, I feel that it’s appropriate even more strongly today than 3 years ago when we adopted it. Reasonable men can differ, as is often said. There’s likely a difference of opinion between us as to what it means to be “Great American”. For you, it must mean that 100% of the shoe manufacturing must start and end in the USA. That’s a tough hurdle to clear – to begin with, fine calfskin and other premium leather components are only available from Europe, as are many high quality rubber soles, so we start from the get-go with an international process. Of the 212 steps that it takes to make our welted shoes, only the first few on the upper are done in the DR (as I explained in detail in the post previously cited above). What arrives as a flat, half-sewn and open-ended “upper” in Port Washington for our welts, is nothing remotely close to being wearable. All of our insoles are cut to each specific length and width in Wisconsin, then prepped for being teamed with the corresponding lasts and the uppers, many of which uppers were made entirely in Port Washington as well. Once the upper is started in either factory, the entire rest of the process to turn leather into shoe occurs just on the other side of the wall from my desk.

Making shoes this way gets to the first attributes of “Great American” that I’ll mention – being approachable, unpretentious and democratic. (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” is central to our corporate culture.) I want our shoes to be affordable for the ex-urban factory worker who wants to look good in his one suit as well as for the sharply-dressed chairman of a Fortune 100 board in a large city. Among the Brits, Alden and a couple factories in Continental Europe that also are the only makers of superior quality, classic Goodyear-welted shoes, only Allen Edmonds regularly sells first quality products for less than $350, let alone the below-$250 offerings we have going right now in our Anniversary Sale.

Our great country at its best has gone above and beyond the call of duty; we do the tough things that other countries don’t and the world has often been much the better for it. At Allen Edmonds, our customer service people (as so many of you have remarked in this thread) follow that example. We also are flexible and responsive to special requests in an American can-do kind of way. We’re quick on delivery (usually), too, as our production line is right in the middle of the country where shipping is easier. Who else delivers Goodyear-welted, team-colored WebGems on short-order for $199 during March Madness?

Our 46 proprietary stores are in Great American cities from New York, Boston (our Newberry Street store is two blocks from the bombings), Philly, Washington DC, Atlanta and Orlando… to Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco; from Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland to Kansas City, St. Louis (opening Wednesday), Houston, Dallas and New Orleans.

We’ve partnered with two of the greatest American golfing icons of all time in Jack Nicklaus and Ben Crenshaw. Ben Hogan’s famous extra-spike shoes were made in our plant. We’ve outfitted the last two Ryder Cup teams with their dress shoes for the opening and closing ceremonies. We’re a business partner of Major League Baseball and on the feet of MLB’s executives in New York. We’ve done the shoes for countless Hollywood movies. Stars on SNL, network news and late night TV often stop in our Rock Center store before their appearances. Author Michael Lewis personally wrote a tribute to AE for our “90 Stories for 90 Years” Anniversary Book last year. Bestselling historian David McCullough stops in our Boston store and does a jig in his new shoes for our store manager. My nephew spotted the original “Shaft” Richard Roundtree at a film festival in Minneapolis and complimented him on his AE Strands – to which Shaft said, “Thanks. They’re my favorite shoes.” And every President from at least Reagan to W wore Allen Edmonds with his right hand raised for the Oath on Inauguration Day, and President Obama wears them also. We have photos with my predecessor of, and/or complimentary handwritten notes from, each (save the current POTUS) on our wall. We’re the shoe of American leaders – from the Oval Office to the corner office to the principal’s office.

We’ve worked with America’s allies for decades. Our main calfskin suppliers are in Germany and France, our main leather sole supplier in Turkey. Our Verona, Urbino and Firenze styles are made by family-owned partner plants in small towns in Italy, and are top 40 sellers for us. We bring our Milwaukee corporate culture to our people in Santiago in the DR, where several of my leadership colleagues and I go every year to serve a Holiday Feast to the workers (we man the buffet line) and to thank them for their hard work and high quality. They work for us exclusively. I’m proud of the jobs and economic vitality that we create there – investing in our hemisphere, just a few hundred miles from Florida’s coast, in a democratic nation just a narrow channel away from the oppression in Cuba and sharing the same island with impoverished Haiti where Columbus first landed in the New World. We’re good diplomats.

Speaking of job creation – our price/value relationship in our shoes has allowed us to grow employment significantly in the U.S. We’ve added about 270 U.S. jobs in the past 2+years and it continues apace. Our production census is up about 50%. Employment in our other critical functions -- including new product development, customer service, shipping, marketing, retail management, finance and store personnel – has grown at least as much, with some more than doubling. Our New England heel base supplier recently told me that our growth has caused his family-owned company to increase their employment by over 25%.

As many of SFers know, we’ve expanded into small and large leather goods in our stores and we’re adding clothing in growing sku counts. Our Massachusetts wallet-maker is nearing the point where he can put his long-mothballed production line back into operation. Our briefcase and bags-making partner in the South has moved production back onshore to meet our Made in USA stipulation. We’ve partnered with tailored clothing, ties and custom shirt manufacturers on the East Coast to make those items also to our specifications for us (our team of designers choose the patterns and fabrics – we have decades-experienced clothing design professionals working for us now). If we’re as successful as I hope with those products, these suppliers’ U.S. employment will also grow significantly. And our business with Skip Horween and his fourth generation tannery in Chicago has burgeoned.

All of this growth is made possible entirely because of the loyalty and support of our customers, including the opinion-leaders in this forum. We wouldn’t risk their trust in us by being disingenuous, and it’s not in our culture or our ethics to do so purposely. Our glued-on rubber-soled shoes are made in construction methods that we don’t have in Wisconsin. We can’t compete with our high-end welted construction plant against the India and China manufacturers of those kind of low-complication shoes that sell for $150 or less (or much less). We don’t want to forfeit that huge part of the shoe business, however, so we’ve joined in. If our shoes are made in the DR, though, we clearly state that fact in our catalogues, online and in the shoes. We specifically use a sub-brand (“ae by Allen Edmonds”) for our DR shoes, in fact, to be even more clear. Here’s a link to our bestselling DR shoe, the “Boulder”. See if you think we’re hiding something (note the final bullet point in the product description)...

http://www.allenedmonds.com/aeonline/producti_SF71801_1_40000000001_-1

So, I now ask you…. Do we still reasonably differ, or are you convinced?

Paul

I am curious as to the requests others have made in response to this generous offer. Personally I toyed with the idea of a brown shell Macneil, but have not yet decided. My most recent trip to the NC outlet netted 3 pairs, including a pair of Merlot Adams, so the April shoe budget is spent!

Additionally, I would like to encourage Paul and AE to expand the MTO program. As a size 15, I typically wait to receive new orders anyway. Some lasts, in some leathers, are not a good fit in a D width, an E would be a better fit. These used to be catalog sizes, so the lasts exist. Why not use a MTO program to better serve the client base while still eliminating inventory costs?

Thanks.

 

[mediahound]

I would hope that does not mean that content is restricted to cheerleading posts only. One can have an appreciation of a brand, but still be critical of its methods or its message. Seems to me that the concerns mediahound raised were stated in both a thoughtful and cogent manner - as was the detailed response by the AE CEO. The sum total of that discussion has been highly informative, IMO. Certainly moreso than yet another "AE are the bestest shoos eveerrrrr!" post.

Yeah, the fact we appreciate AE does not mean we cannot also have questions/issues with them from time to time, and point them out. I really don't think this thread should be like N. Korea or something where if you say one thing bad about the 'dear leader', you are executed. Although it seems some here think this way, which is a shame on them.

 

[mexicutioner]

just received my townleys!

two initial thoughts:

• they definitely feel lighter than i expected.
• the color is a lot closer to Alden #8 than i was expecting. definitely has some purplish hue to it.

i have a pair of Alden #8 plain toes on the barrie last at home. i'll try to take some comparison pics tonight.

also: we can't force MH to shut the hell up, but we can drown him out to the point where his beat-to-death gets overlooked. so, can we all collectively agree to POST THE HELL OUT OF SOME AE for the time being, until all of this nonsense fades into the background?

 

[Busa]

To your point- asked, and answered.

I would hope that does not mean that content is restricted to cheerleading posts only. One can have an appreciation of a brand, but still be critical of its methods or its message. Seems to me that the concerns mediahound raised were stated in both a thoughtful and cogent manner - as was the detailed response by the AE CEO. The sum total of that discussion has been highly informative, IMO. Certainly moreso than yet another "AE are the bestest shoos eveerrrrr!" post.

 

[OptoDoc]

Media Hound: - (Noun)
~ idiomatic. A person who actively seeks public attention by participating in stunts that generate (negative) publicity.

A definition to shed light on what MH's motives truly are.

 

[New Shoes1]

Well said.

Dear

:

In addition to appreciating his comments, I hope you also paid attention to the fact that he made his point in one post and moved on - instead of posting 10-20 posts making the exact same point over and over and over and over and over again. You will notice this is why WDAHAB will not get the same grief that you get. The facts are not in dispute. You draw one conclusion from the facts and most others draw a different conclusion. You are entitled to your opinion. As is everyone else, which is a polite way of asking you to stop trying to shove your opinion down everyone else's throat and to treat those with whom you dissent in a more respectful manner (i.e. not referring to their statements as rhetoric or BS).

Yeah, the fact we appreciate AE does not mean we cannot also have questions/issues with them from time to time, and point them out. I really don't think this thread should be like N. Korea or something where if you say one thing bad about the 'dear leader', you are executed. Although it seems some here think this way, which is a shame.

 

[Pastor]

I appreciate the CEO coming on this forum and stating what he did. I own a lot of AE shoes and most of them are in shell. I just ordered two more pair of shell shoes from the Jefferson Outlet in the past two days. I look at the price and the construction quality of a shoe when I make a decision to buy. I like AE because they represent a good value in the shoe market. I don't think they are as good as Alden (my opinion) and I don't think they are anywhere as good as Carmina (again, my opinion) but then AE shoes cost a lot less than shoes from those two companies. If I were the CEO I would play the Made in America line as much as I could. With that said I feel that shoes that have their uppers sewn together in another country cannot be realistically considered as "Made in America". I'm not sure how to handle this except that I would separate all the factories and make complete shoes in each factory (i.e. the Italian line in Italy, the AE line in DR, and all others in America). To continue to use the mantra of American Made, I would expect all of the shoe to be made in America. AE can do what they want and frankly I don't expect them to listen to me but what is at stake here is he reputation of the company.

 

[jkater1]



just received my townleys!

two initial thoughts:

• they definitely feel lighter than i expected.
• the color is a lot closer to Alden #8 than i was expecting. definitely has some purplish hue to it.

i have a pair of Alden #8 plain toes on the barrie last at home. i'll try to take some comparison pics talso: we can't force MH to shut the hell up, but we can drown him out to the point where his beat-to-death gets overlooked. so, can we all collectively agree to POST THE HELL OUT OF SOME AE for the time being, until all of this nonsense fades into the background

Those were the exact first thoughts that I had when I got mine, although I thought mine were a little more red. I was surprised that they had JR soles, wasn't expecting that.

Couldn't agree more, it's a waste of time scrolling through this crap.

 

[tampatravel]

just received my townleys!

two initial thoughts:

• they definitely feel lighter than i expected.
• the color is a lot closer to Alden #8 than i was expecting. definitely has some purplish hue to it.

i have a pair of Alden #8 plain toes on the barrie last at home. i'll try to take some comparison pics tonight.

also: we can't force MH to shut the hell up, but we can drown him out to the point where his beat-to-death

gets overlooked. so, can we all collectively agree to POST THE HELL OUT OF SOME AE for the time being, until all of this nonsense fades into the background?

Those Townleys are awesome aren't they? I have yet to wear mine around the house yet though...out of respect for you not receiving yours yet

 

[RogerP]

To your point- asked, and answered.

Well, when they make you king of the forum, you'll get decide when the horse is dead. Can't wait.

Speaking of horses asses, new Townleys in da house:



I must give a major vote of thanks to the forumite who publicized this deal. Gorgeous shoe, heckuva value.

 

[mediahound]

Dear

:

In addition to appreciating his comments, I hope you also paid attention to the fact that he made his point in one post and moved on - instead of posting 10-20 posts making the exact same point over and over and over and over and over again. You will notice this is why WDAHAB will not get the same grief that you get. The facts are not in dispute. You draw one conclusion from the facts and most others draw a different conclusion. You are entitled to your opinion. As is everyone else, which is a polite way of asking you to stop trying to shove your opinion down everyone else's throat and to treat those with whom you dissent in a more respectful manner (i.e. not referring to their statements as rhetoric or BS).

The record shows that I had 'moved on' until the CEO posted a reply which failed to address some key points, which I called him out on.

 

[jkater1]



Rhetoric? OK lets deal with some facts then. The only reason you came over here to start with is someone posted on the Alden thread that AE had a selection of suede shoes more reasonably priced than Alden which are $500. So you and several others came to the AE Appreciation thread, and several have stayed and are looking at other AE offerings. Which I think is great.

I must admit I did just this, although after reading about the suede chukkas I ended up passing. I did end up with a killer deal on some Townleys though.