For well known brands, such as John Lobb, Model Archive is a great place to find those unusual models and maybe buy it by request.
For those only known by its name, the review can have a general feeling of its products.
For the completely unknown, Model Archive will also introduce some background for it except aforementioned two functions.
Ingenuity clearly belongs to the last one.
Its mother company is Kamioka, have been in ODM business for years. Although its name seems Japanese, the fact is it is a Taiwanese company, manufactured dress shoes in Taiwan as early as 90s, set up the Japanese subsidiary Kamioka in 2010, then released its own brand, Ingenuity.
But move the production to China Mainland in 2011, so the company being set up in Japan is just a smoke or marketing if you like. The relocation is yet done, several years later, the shoes are made in Laos as now.
Construction is always Goodyear welted.
The bright part is they are cooperating with National Palace Museum in Taipei on three models as below:
No matter the shoes are very good or not, this kind of cross cooperation is very desired to witness.
The shoes have two range, high end has the sole like this:
And the main line sole looks like this:
Price is 160 USD.
Let us check their designs.
Remark
I introduced very affordable Goodyear Welted shoes from China Mainland, cost only 65 USD, and this brand moved the production to Laos where labour is much more cheaper, so as its price, there should be some quality there.
Two points are concerned.
One is the leather seems not so good. The other is the designs seem stacked with different sources just like blocks, no harmony inside.