Walk A Mile on These Soles

A day spent walking the streets of any city as a tourist calls for comfortable shoes. For seeing the sights, I like crepe soles on open laced shoes, so when I wore mine out a while ago I determined to replace them before this year's tourist travel.

My first stop was Edward Green, which doesn't offer crepe soles because, according to managing director Hilary Freeman, "crepe is sold in sheet form and we are left with material which becomes rigid before we are able to use it all." She prefers Dainite, and though I like that material as well I already have a pair. My goal was crepe.

I like crepe because it's soft and cushiony, and provides good traction on wet or dry concrete and bricks. There are a couple of downsides - natural crepe is plantation grown rubber and will become temporarily rigid if frozen or very soft if left in the heat. The cure for rigidity is a minute in a low oven and to fix softness, just sprinkle talcum powder on the soles.

My second stop was Gaziano & Girling, which it turns out does offer crepe. I'm hoping that my crepe soled Wells in chestnut pin grain arrive in time to walk around Glasgow this Fall.

Photo: Gaziano & Girling