Appreciate Onepiece from Maftei with Inter Milan Patina

Many people know that I work in an automotive company that has a supercar line. There was a meeting with a very senior executive called Skip Level, and he used a word that impressed me very much. He said the brand is selling Sensation. This word really struck me.

This is also my view of fashion or clothing. Anyone who talks about cost-effectiveness in this field will be silenced by our powerful Chinese-made goods. No matter what big-name clothes, no matter what material you make, handed over to our manufacturing industry, we Chinese can beat the price to hell. So why do we still worship luxury brands of foreign countries?

Because from beginning to end, it is not the material that is sold. You can see that some brands have ultra-luxury raw materials made of finished products, which are very expensive, whether it is porous crocodile or Vicuna fabric, but the price of goods of those brands has also increased by at least 10 times.

Because it’s still Sensation that’s sold. It makes people feel excited, enjoyed, fulfilled and superior. Yes, it’s feeling, the illusory feeling.

Back to bespoke shoemakers, I’ve always been thinking in two dimensions.

Shoes must give people a good look and be comfortable. Good-looking is relatively subjective, regardless of the person’s age, personality, occupation, even including the influence of the region. Comfortable, in fact, it is not as mysterious as everyone thinks. Is ECCO uncomfortable? Is Nike uncomfortable? I think there are so many shoe brands, so many lasts, there is always a suitable one. Bespoke shoemaker’s comfort is nothing more than a few more adjustments to fit some feet more special, such as thumb valgus, flat feet and so on.
Sensation. Bespoke shoemakers also count in the category of Artisan, craftsmen. There is an important point here, that is, art. If it is a pure labour, it is necessary to ask where the difference is with the machine, and how to evaluate this difference. Because the function of labour is to realize other people’s ideas, and maybe the path to implementation is well devised. Art, on the other hand, is creation. This is the unique value of human beings when artificial intelligence is not fully mature. This is the core competitiveness that can touch the soul.

That’s because on Instagram we always see some amazing works. Some of the designs are unexpected while harmonious. Some designs are unreasonable but with extremely high degree of completion.

And this pair of Maftei I shared with you is the one that made me throb when I opened the box.

Blue to black patina, seamless wholecut Oxford with 360 degree Norwegian stitches.

Seamless wholecut Oxford is Maftei’s signature. Maftei is not the only one in the world that can handle this skill, but he is probably the most skilled and experienced.

360-degree Norwegian stitches are also an element that Maftei loves to choose.

But what makes me throb has nothing to do with these two, because I have seen too much. It is this Inter Milan patina that does.

I am an Inter fan from the Ronaldo era, through Recoba, Vieri, Adriano and Milito, Eto’o. This is a team even more melancholy than Italy, a black hole of stars. But if you like it, you can never rebel.

The beauty of this patina is on the one hand, and it touches my emotions is the other.

Scotch grain leather is hand lasted to a very stretched extent, and the grains look flatter and different with those country shoes made by English peers.

This blue patina gives the feeling of an ocean, transitioning like a suddenly sunken trench to the deep underwater world.

The threads of Norwegian stitches are also dyed blue and gray.

Maftei has always liked to make the stitches stand out, and Norwegian stitching is mostly white, which I always prefer, especially when some of the upper colors are brighter.

Vibram rubber sole with edge rounded.

In the field of stitched shoes, if you see such a sole, you should conclude that this is a layer of rubber sole glued on the “real” outsole.

The rubber sole I first came across was Dainite, an English brand, and I don’t know how many people are like me. Its original classic “nipple bottom” (excuse me, such a vulgar name, not invented by me), studded rubber sole never looks good in my opinion. However, because it has a first-mover advantage, it is considered to be the default appearance of rubber sole. City sole is very good-looking introduced by Crockett & Jones and maybe John Lobb. Later, I learned about the world’s overlord of rubber soles, Vibram, and began to observe the soles used by Maftei. When I visited the Vibram Asia-Pacific R&D Center, I felt that their focus was more outdoors, sporty, and functional. I didn’t see many things suitable for formal dress shoes. This sole is very difficult to wear out.

The last is not very in line with my aesthetics, but in with many dress shoe lovers’. Noticeably elongated, and in contrast to the German-Austrian style, the toe is much sharper.