Intro and shoes issue

[Danish Sergeant]

Hello all,

Quick intro - been lurking the forum ever since I entered the corporate world a few years ago. See lots of advice here that I've put to good use. Work as an auditor in a business casual environment, but I try to keep it pretty dressed up. Have a thing for Italian-cut suits and narrow solid-color ties.

My first real dress shoes were a pair of Park Avenues and Westchester loafers from Allen Edmonds. I love them both, but have run into problems living in the upper reaches of New England. Simply put, the awful weather up here has not been kind to them.

I've done my best not to wear them in inclement weather, to the point of wearing cheap moccasins until I get to work and switching over, but there have been enough incidents (caught in a sudden downpour, soaked with road-salted water from a passing car, etc.) that they've taken a beating. After each incident I took the necessary steps to dry/clean/condition. The Park Avenues have fared ok, and have been through a re-crafting, although there are a few obvious signs of damage. The loafers, despite my best efforts, are cracking around the outstep and the leather simply looks like hell no matter what I do to recover it. Both pairs are about three years old, and I'm honestly a little upset at their condition. I've considered replacing both, but I'm leery of dropping the money again given what has happened to these.

I'm wondering if anybody can recommend decent dress shoes that can handle the New England seasons.

In addition, I'm wondering what I did wrong with them. In each case where they were soaked or were exposed to bad weather, I took the following steps:

1. Allowed to dry completely away from heat.
2. Removed salt stains with a mixture of vinegar and water.
3. Applied Kiwi leather conditioner - several times in bad cases.
4. Polished using Kiwi products.
5. Cedar shoe trees were ALWAYS used as soon as the shoes came off my feet.

I'm wondering if the Kiwi stuff had anything to do with it.

Anyway, sorry for the long post. Thanks for any help or advice.

-sergeant-

 

[viator]

It may just be that there's not much you can do given the weather. I would try switching to better products, like Lexol or Renovateur for conditioning, then I would use a cream polish, and finally a wax layer to give more protection. The Saphir products are good, or you can use the AE branded products.

Have you considered topy? That might help a bit as well, but obviously that's more of a help for the sole.

 

[Xenon]

This use of vinegar everywhere is really getting out of hand.

The following rant is directed not at OP but at all the www info (actually mostly nonsense) floating around relating to the use of vinegar and sometimes rehashed here in styleforum.

Let's talk about about white vinegar and the only remotely legitimate use in a household - to make homemade condiments......period

If you want vinegar for salads etc than Balsamic vinegar (the real one) is the only option

Now if you want to clean something FORGET ABOUT VINEGAR )*(&^(&*%&^$*%(*^)*(&*+_*+_ .........UNDERSTAND.

If you want to wash windows or hard surfaces and are a greenpeace freak then even a lazy ass search of the internet will yield "citric acid", which cleans better and doesn't smell like some putrid concoction. I mean seriously, don't vinegar users have noses??????????????? I don't even want to think about who the hell would use vinegar to wash clothes.

Shoes and leather
I would like to know who the HELL was the first to ever come up with the idea that it was safe to use an acid (even a weak one like vinegar) on leather. Yes leather is sometimes tanned with an acid buts guess what, that acid needs to be neutralized afterwards and is part of the process. Leave even only a small amount of acid in the leather and it will HARM the leather in the short or long run.

Calcium salts and other types of road salts are very water soluable and can/should be removed simply with lots and lots of running water - nothing else needed. You rinse and rinse and rinse the salt off. Let dry - after if there is still some white salt residue left start rinsing again.
afte rthe final dry make sure you condition the hell out of the leather - condition like you never conditioned before.

Sorry ...End of rant.