An undecorated three tie blucher may be my favorite weekend shoe. With jacket or without, the style looks sublime in dark suede under corduroys in winter and every bit as good in tan calfskin under linen in warm weather.
The models in the first photo are part of a new ready-to-wear collection by London's W.S. Foster. They will be available at their Jermyn Street store for £525.00 (about $1,000) including VAT any day now. Nice toe!
Photo: Gaziano & Girling
And then there is Gaziano & Girling's Derwent, pictured above. The G&G line has perhaps the best heel and waist treatment of any machine-made shoe that I've seen. $1,100 made to order and write me if you'd like a pair.
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5 comments:
I find the toes of both shoes far too "European" and prefer a traditional American blucher toe:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Blucher_(Grenson).jpg/518px-Blucher_(Grenson).jpg
I was just thinking about buying a very similar pair of shoes for myself just yesterday! The only difference is that the shoes I'm considering purchasing have five eyelets instead of three. I must say that I would very much consider these from G&G instead if it weren't for the price tag. I'm just starting in my career and do not yet have an income great enough to afford those handsome shoes.
I don't find the shoes too European looking. Perhaps some might find them that way because of the unusually large expanse of unbroken leather on the toe?
I have always been of the mindset that suede shoes are basically disposable. When you scratch or soil them, away they go. I still love suede shoes but I only buy bucks in different shades just from a price point. I don't think I could live with myself if I purchased $1,000 disposable shoes. Who cares how well made they are when the upper is the first thing to go?
youngin, suede isn't disposable, but it does take more maintenance if in light colors. I bought a suede eraser at Allen-Edmund two years ago and it's still working fine for keeping my white and "dirty" bucks looking great.
With brown suede, the maintenance is much less frequent. I'll still brush them now and then, but they're much more resilient than light color shoes.
Meanwhile, I'm not sure which part of the shoe is the "waist". Might be fodder for a future posting with some pictures of shoes with different waist styles, because I do not have an eye for that yet.
The waist is the middle of the shoe at the sole. In a hand made shoe, the inside edge of the sole is cut nearly an inch narrower than the top of the upper. Machine made shoes generally cannot duplicate this elegant look and have thicker waists, however G&G has an old machine that makes a waist that's almost indistinguishable externally from hand made. Unfortunately, the photo of their blucher was taken before they began using it.
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