The 2023 Allen Edmonds (AE) Appreciation Thread

[madhat]

What do you do when there’s a sale and nothing else you want? AE needs some new colors and leathers.

My suggestion is to back away from the gluttonous consumer mindset and wait for something you truly want (maybe other mfgs as @smfdoc suggests). There’s many other ways to use your money than buying something just because it’s on sale…only to be bored of it and sell it off in 6 months.

 

[madhat]

They also made, for a period, the Hatorade 2.0 on the same 65 last:

View attachment 2046747

Is that like Gatorade for haters?

 

[ProfilaBinding]

I do, am a professional jazz trumpeter in New Orleans.

Apologies for a very off topic convo, but I'm curious how it is they're losing money now but weren't losing money before when the interest rate on the loans being made was in the 2-3% range. My recollection of the bank collapses earlier this year is that they were precipitated by the change in interest rates, but were slightly different situations:

Silicon Valley bet incorrectly (and stupidly) on unlimited cheap money in the form of a low Fed Funds interest rate and got screwed when their herd mentality VC customers panicked after learning the bank needed to raise capital to shore itself up, thus killing the bank quickly and potentially at great cost to themselves.

First Republic catered to high net worth individuals who had excessive amounts of uninsured deposits and became "risk averse" when SVB and maybe another smaller regional bank failed and similar to SVB their panic fueled a bank run which First Republic was unable to recover from.

In my non-economist brain it seems like the banks made fatal mistakes in having all their eggs in one basket (SVB with the VC community and First Republic with rich people) and got greedy and overextended themselves by loaning out a lot of money relative to the capital they had available to cover their deposits if a lot of their customers suddenly decided they wanted their money back. It seems to me like the interest rate changes were less of a problem than the greed of the bankers since interest rates are not guaranteed to stay low (or high) forever, and the panicky behavior of the banks clients, who may actually not have had anything to fear if they had simply left their money alone and let the banks adjust to the new reality of the higher interest rates. On the flip side, one could certainly make the argument that those banks absolutely deserved to fail because they were making stupid choices with respect to their balance sheets and capitalism is about letting the makers of poor choices fail.

Anyway, I agree with the other guy, invest in shoes and your money won't be lost by some greedy banker, it'll be on your feet.

Very cool that you play trumpet for a career. I played trombone just for one year in college to learn a little bit about it.

I'll try to send you PM with a real source, just so I don't piss off people on here too much. It's basically a problem for banks because the yield of those low rate mortgages (or bonds) are not keeping up with the rate of inflation and the higher costs of borrowing money through the FFR. That's why most banks wanted to sell off their 30 year mortgages to another bank, as they knew it would hurt them by holding it if rates went up. They didn't mind holding them when the FFR was 0 for so many years. Now at 5.5, it's a whole different situation. The government says real inflation is less than 10%, but I think they are severely understating it. When I go to Costco, things are 40, 50 or even 100% higher than they were a year ago.

I went with my 6 year old Higgins. I'm amazed at how well these have kept up over the last several years.

 

[admin]

@LA Guy Do you have advice on this issue?

I'll refer to @admin, but you may wish to decrease the default size of your pictures. The forum's picture size limit is in place so that page rendering is at a reasonable speed. I'm not sure if we have software that can autoreduce the size of the images to something workable that doesn't grind things to halt. That would obviously be the best solution, but it may or may not exist, and it would have to be in the core codebase for us to trust it. I know that the next iteration of the software will use some image types that are more memory efficient, but as with all software, the launch dates are not clear. We will be able to tell you what the maximum image sizes are right now though.

Cheers,

Fok.

It’s due to the Pro Max having an image size of 24 megapixels. I’m looking into seeing if we can bump our current max which is 20.

 

[EZB]

I'll refer to @admin, but you may wish to decrease the default size of your pictures. The forum's picture size limit is in place so that page rendering is at a reasonable speed. I'm not sure if we have software that can autoreduce the size of the images to something workable that doesn't grind things to halt. That would obviously be the best solution, but it may or may not exist, and it would have to be in the core codebase for us to trust it. I know that the next iteration of the software will use some image types that are more memory efficient, but as with all software, the launch dates are not clear. We will be able to tell you what the maximum image sizes are right now though.

Cheers,

Fok.

It’s due to the Pro Max having an image size of 24 megapixels. I’m looking into seeing if we can bump our current max which is 20.

Thanks for your help. I had tried shrinking the image sizes down as jpegs, but it still complained.

 

[bluejazzmonkey]

I tried the Caen on the B34 last - it required thickest socks and insoles to be wearable. Would've kept them except for some horrendous quality issues (which AE graciously resolved).

@Shoenut I'm beginning to think the 2215 last would be my jam. Is it narrower than the 1757? The Chapman really isn't a bad looking boot. And even the Chapman wingtip pattern grew on me, but sold out in my size by the time I considered buying a pair.


As mentioned yesterday, I'll be using, not abusing, these Freeports quite a bit more in the coming months. Updates will be only occasional to prevent inundating this thread with similar content, but after several day's wear they are already beginning to form to my foot and take on a slightly lighter hue. I want them to look even lighter in the long run so they'll be seeing a bit of sun as able. The shell does seem to run tighter on foot compared to the other models.

Shade vs. direct sun
View attachment 2045879
View attachment 2045881

That is a damn good looking boot.

 

[wasmisterfu]

Is that like Gatorade for haters?

It’s what Strand-Bigots crave.

 

[JFWR]

I have my money in my walls and under the mattress tucked next to the 12 gauge. I find it is the safest place to keep my money.

Agree, long term savings in investments and some in bonds, short term savings is for high yield savings accounts.

OR pUt AlL yOuR MoNeY iN CrYpTo (yes I know some people do this and I know some people have made a bag of money but many of lost a lot of money or have just been defrauded despite thinking they made a bag of money)

Crypto can make you money because people are stupid. It's not a good asset as it's a scam, but stupidity of others doesn't mean it isn't situationally the right path if you can get out. Wouldn't recommend, though.

 

[Peak and Pine]

 

[Shoenut]

Landon day 2.

 

[pbrandes]

Does anyone else think the Park Avenue Derby looks suspiciously like the old Lexington, dusted off and rebranded? Even has the same stitching.

Although I like my Lex in chili, I get the objections about the clashing formality in a cap toe derby.

But one AE model I think worked perfectly as a casual cap toe derby was the Oak Street in (spectacularly comfortable) kudu.

EDIT: Just remembered another favorite, though not strictly a derby or even open laced for that matter but still a cap toe with no formality clash for me ... the Overlord, also in kudu. Kuincidence?

 

[wasmisterfu]

Does anyone else think the Park Avenue Derby looks suspiciously like the old Lexington, dusted off and rebranded? Even has the same stitching.

View attachment 2047421

Although I like my Lex in chili, I get the objections about the clashing formality in a cap toe derby.

But one AE model I think worked perfectly as a casual cap toe derby was the Oak Street in (spectacularly comfortable) kudu.

View attachment 2047419
EDIT: Just remembered another favorite, though not strictly a derby or even open laced for that matter but still a cap toe with no formality clash for me ... the Overlord, also in kudu. Kuincidence?

View attachment 2047423

The most recent Lexington and Oak Street used the same uppers pattern. The new Park Derby, while similar is slightly different (and I could swear both older and newer Lexington’s were on the 511 last, whereas the Park Ave Derby is on the 65).

The older Lexington, just for reference:

 

[wasmisterfu]

View attachment 2047015

I just posted a shoe that, via brogueing, suggests a bicycle toe… while not actually being a bicycle toe. You actually posted a bicycle toe. Know that @ProfilaBinding and @Shoenut just died inside.

 

[MrOxford]

They also made, for a period, the Hatorade 2.0 on the same 65 last:

View attachment 2046747

I've seen a different shoe company making something similar to those brogue patterns, but a bit more elegant. I don't own any of those shoes, since my preference is changing for less brogue. Anyways, thanks for posting the 2.0 version.

 

[dpgaloot]

I'm sitting in the middle of 2 weeks of vacation. I always take time off in October to enjoy the fall colors in the Rockies. Heading north today as the eclipse has packed central Utah full. I did make it down to The Wedge on the San Rafael Swell earlier this week on the motorcycle. My friend and I only saw one other person at this location on Thursday.

Lots of boots for riding. My favorite marbled pair for today. DMC Landons.