Casaubon
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2019
- Messages
- 147
- Reaction score
- 73
Hi all,
Newbie here, so please pardon any misused terms when it comes to clothing or, in this case, footwear. Although what I am about to ask is mostly of interest to me, I will try to include a more broad question which I haven't seen addressed on the forum, hoping therefore that it might arouse general interest.
I am on the lookout for new shoes that I can wear to work a few times per week, especially in summer in rotation with my suede desert boots. There is by no means any pressure to dress nicely at work, so at this point I am simply trying to keep it smart casual, leaning slightly more towards the casual side - chinos/slacks, sweaters and button down shirts.
There's nothing specific in terms of the style of the shoe, the only thing I am insisting on is for it to be a dress shoe, with laces, leather soles and lining. Ideally, I would like a shoe which would last at least a decade with proper care.
Now, I am on a budget, and cannot afford to spend much more than $150. Following advice from this website and elsewhere, normally I would go for a pair of Meermins or Johnon & Murphy's on sale. However, online shopping in my country (Serbia) is made more expensive by import duties and VAT, and if you add the delivery fee, it would exceed my budget significantly.
Unfortunatelly, options in stores for shoes that fit the abovementioned criteria are limited, to say the least. To make the problem worse, salespeople are usually not knowledgeable at all about their product (when asking about leather, I would usually receive the response "Oh, it's very high quality, it's genuine leather!"). Also, they usually don't know the answer to the question if the shoes are glued or stitched. Which means that it's up to me to determine the quality of the shoe in question.
When it comes to stitching, I can pretty much figure it out myself. I also assume that there are no Goodyear-welted shoes to be found in stores. Actually, there is only place that I know of that sells such shoes. There most affordable ones are Berwick, which fall into the upper limit of my budget only when they are on sale. At the moment there are no sizes for the models I like and I would have to wait for SS19 models to go on sale which would not happen until October or November. Is it worth the wait?
What I suppose I was trying to ask this whole time is how does one check the quality of the leather? What properties am I looking for? Does it stretch or is it firm? Also, is it possible for one to find good quality leather in cemented shoes?
The place that sells Goodyear-welted shoes also sells Church's (which are completely outside of my price range). I held a pair in my hands, trying to get a feel of the material, but couldn't honestly tell the difference between these and most of the other, much cheaper ones (I am speaking merely of the quality of leather itself, not the finishing which was obviously finer). So, what methods should I resort to in order to determine what is a good investment?
Newbie here, so please pardon any misused terms when it comes to clothing or, in this case, footwear. Although what I am about to ask is mostly of interest to me, I will try to include a more broad question which I haven't seen addressed on the forum, hoping therefore that it might arouse general interest.
I am on the lookout for new shoes that I can wear to work a few times per week, especially in summer in rotation with my suede desert boots. There is by no means any pressure to dress nicely at work, so at this point I am simply trying to keep it smart casual, leaning slightly more towards the casual side - chinos/slacks, sweaters and button down shirts.
There's nothing specific in terms of the style of the shoe, the only thing I am insisting on is for it to be a dress shoe, with laces, leather soles and lining. Ideally, I would like a shoe which would last at least a decade with proper care.
Now, I am on a budget, and cannot afford to spend much more than $150. Following advice from this website and elsewhere, normally I would go for a pair of Meermins or Johnon & Murphy's on sale. However, online shopping in my country (Serbia) is made more expensive by import duties and VAT, and if you add the delivery fee, it would exceed my budget significantly.
Unfortunatelly, options in stores for shoes that fit the abovementioned criteria are limited, to say the least. To make the problem worse, salespeople are usually not knowledgeable at all about their product (when asking about leather, I would usually receive the response "Oh, it's very high quality, it's genuine leather!"). Also, they usually don't know the answer to the question if the shoes are glued or stitched. Which means that it's up to me to determine the quality of the shoe in question.
When it comes to stitching, I can pretty much figure it out myself. I also assume that there are no Goodyear-welted shoes to be found in stores. Actually, there is only place that I know of that sells such shoes. There most affordable ones are Berwick, which fall into the upper limit of my budget only when they are on sale. At the moment there are no sizes for the models I like and I would have to wait for SS19 models to go on sale which would not happen until October or November. Is it worth the wait?
What I suppose I was trying to ask this whole time is how does one check the quality of the leather? What properties am I looking for? Does it stretch or is it firm? Also, is it possible for one to find good quality leather in cemented shoes?
The place that sells Goodyear-welted shoes also sells Church's (which are completely outside of my price range). I held a pair in my hands, trying to get a feel of the material, but couldn't honestly tell the difference between these and most of the other, much cheaper ones (I am speaking merely of the quality of leather itself, not the finishing which was obviously finer). So, what methods should I resort to in order to determine what is a good investment?