Unexpected rain shower, shoes permanently damaged?

[Szeph el raton]

Dear gents, yesterday I 've been to the city when an unbelievable downpour catched me off guard. Wet to the knees despite of my umbrella. I was wearing my rather new pair of brogued derbies from a company named "Laszlo" (that's not Vass but goodyear welted shoes in the price range of Loake1880 line) that I bought a month ago. The quality looked quite nice and they fit rather well but after letting them dry for over 24h I noticed a separation of the brogued leather on my right shoe. On the following pic you can see how the line between the 3 big holes in the background is raised slightly.

Here a sideshot. You can see how the leather is increased in heigth. There is appr. 2mm in the middle between the upper and lower leather layer.

Now my questions are:

• Is this the expected behaviour of the shoe after getting really wet and drying for a day?
• If it is not supposed to be like this, is there anything a cobbler could do?
• Is this a quality deficit of the shoe? Should I return it?
• Am I being sissy to be frustrated by such a small flaw?

Looking forward to good advice and snark comments. EDIT: It's some weeks now that this happened. Due to whatever reasons the soles of the shoes started getting mouldy after 3 days of drying in my living room. I've brought them back to the shop because this definitely shouldn't happen. They've sent them to the producer and now we're waiting since a little over 3 weeks on a reply. I'd say don't buy shoes from this company. Stick to the well known brands.

 

[Warren G.]

Tbh, I don't see anything wrong.

 

[Kentishman]

I may well be wrong, but this looks like the kind of creasing one would expect across the toe when breaking in new shoes..?

 

[Szeph el raton]

Originally Posted by Warren G.

Tbh, I don't see anything wrong.
It's kinda hard to make it visible in the pictures. Basically on the right shoe the upper layer of leather has separated from the layer below and there is a 2mm thick, 6 x 2cm big air bubble under the top leather (I'm kinda afraid dirt could get between those two layers now). On the left shoe the leather is tight sticking together without any separation. I guess I could live with it, I'm just not sure if this is the level of quality to expect from a 200-250 EUR shoe. None of my cheap shoes ever had that.

 

[HORNS]

Do you have trees in them? I'd condition them really well with a well-fitting tree to see if you can get that little wrinkle out.

 

[Fuuma]

Clean and condition them then put in shoe trees. If it doesn't go away it's not big deals, they're shoes and look better worn in.

 

[Canal Directo]

+1 This is how a well worn in shoe is supposed to look like. Really no big deal here.

 

[Szeph el raton]

Ok, then the world is fine and there are glittering fairies everywhere... or something like that

Stupid separating leather, tz... I'm happy there's nothing wrong. Thanks for the quick responses guys.

 

[Mild Mannered]

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Clean and condition them then put in shoe trees. If it doesn't go away it's not big deals, they're shoes and look better worn in.
May I also add, leaving them in the shoe trees for 3 days. Don't be in a hurry to wear them sooner. It happens to all of us sooner or later. My own experience is, 3 days of rest in the trees are a minimum for a good drying out period.

 

[Kentishman]

Originally Posted by Szeph el ratón

Ok, then the world is fine and there are glittering fairies everywhere... or something like that

Stupid separating leather, tz... I'm happy there's nothing wrong. Thanks for the quick responses guys.

You know, these kind of things bug me too, but I end up just thinking "you know what, who really cares" and try and chill! (although my wife you no doubt say I just let it get me down for weeks and throw things about, but that's another story...

)

 

[JayJay]

The shoes look fine to me.

 

[DocHolliday]

If it's a bubble and not a crease -- the glue is coming loose -- I don't know that I'd add more moisture in the form of conditioner. If one shoe now looks significantly different than the other, you might have a cobbler take a look at them, once they've dried completely.