I liked dress shoes first, and then suits or classic menswear. It’s like I liked Robert Carlos first, then Brazil, then Ronaldo, then Inter, and then football.
So, what is the charm of dress shoes that fascinates me? Especially as a single item, not as a part of classic menswear. The answer is a brilliant rejuvenation.
The first time I saw a comparison like this, I was stunned!
And then I frantically watched this restoration process. I thought that it must be a very good shoe to achieve such a transition from black chicken into a phoenix.
Then I saw that most of these shoe brands, in fact, were not the international top-line bespoke shoemakers that I aspire to today, but entry-level brands such as Allen Edmonds, which have a lot of market ownership. Actually, this is very good, because it let me conclude that most shoes can be awesome if you take care of it well.
If the shoes in the example at that time were like Edward Green, I am afraid that I would not be able to enter the pit and be scared away.
Shoe shining has a deep connection with classic menswear philosophy, that is the pursuit of detail and premium texture. Most people who care a lot about dress shoes and want them to be delicate and translucent, they do the same for their clothes.
Once a person begins to pay attention to the details of a certain field, it is difficult for him to accept things that are not refined enough. This is probably as deep as the sea as soon as you start to care.
Back to one question, can only Goodyear shoes be rejuvenated? Can cemented shoes?
The answer is yes, and I’ve seen these shoes with mirror shined toes. But why is it so rare? This has a lot to do with the price and the psychology. If you spend a lot of money, you will care more about it and be more willing to spend time on it. If you plan to own it for one year and buy another one, even you know that caring can make it serve for 10 years, you will not do it, because it goes against your expectations.
This goes back to what I said about the ultra-long durability of stitched shoes many times, it is not that it really stands by for how long, but that it just matches a certain psychological need of the person who buys. Psychological satisfaction is always a place where the relatively affluent commodity society should pay more attention.