I was featured on BUSINESS INSIDER!!! Before & After look at a RESTORATION: Allen Edmonds Carlyles

before i start today's video i just want to remind all of you to make sure and follow me on instagram if you haven't already done so aside from youtube it's where i'm most active on social media in between videos and where i like to post the work that i do and it's usually stuff that's not featured here in video format such as this amethyst purple patina i recently did additionally i'm always on facebook and if you'd like to join my facebook group hashtag shine your shoes or the allen edmonds enthusiast where i'm a moderator you can tag me on posts or ask me questions and i'll always answer as always visit the elegantoxford.com for all of your shoe care needs use code september friends for a five percent discount for my youtube audience welcome to the elegant oxford we specialize and offer premium shoe shines dyes and artisan patinas for quality men's brands and help others to learn the art of shoe shining visit the elegantoxford.com for all of your shoe care and saphir madai door needs so this is actually pretty exciting i was answering emails a couple of months ago and to my utter shock i was contacted by business insider and they told me they wanted to do a segment piece on the elegant oxford on their art insider page and of course i said yes i'd be crazy not to now the completed is on their instagram and snapchat page but i wanted to make sure my youtube audience also got a chance to see it so the following is actually that footage of the restoration with some commentary from me as opposed to art insider i left a link to the art insider piece down in the description of this video so you can watch it and check it out as well so this is kind of like a backstage look at what actually happened and i'll walk you through everything i did to take the shoes from trash to treasure so the video might actually be longer than usual but these shoes were actually a pretty unique challenge because one of the stipulations of the piece was that i was not allowed to change the shoe's color and i actually needed to restore the shoe to look as close as it did originally now usually scuffs and scrapes are easy to deal with when you can just re-dye a shoe to another color for example a walnut tan shoe like this one can simply be dyed dark brown or burgundy to hide the imperfections more readily but since the shoes needed to remain tan i had to do some extra work now this pair of shoes was actually donated to the elegant oxford from one of our viewers um so it's a it's it's a pair that's going to be donated but as you can see they're you know the shoes are a little beat up but that's okay there are some scratches and abrasions all over the toe area and the soles of the shoes are definitely worn down too far to use the shoes will need a resole and then i'll need to fix the abrasions and give the shoes a nice shine before they're able to head out the door to their new home okay so the people at art insider asked me to take multiple angles of the shoe to make sure that everything was covered so you're going to see a lot of spinning and a lot of different angles um but i want you to see all of it and i really want to thank everyone for being so patient i know it's been about three weeks since i've uploaded a new video thanks to everyone who participated in the 150 000 subscriber giveaway the winner contacted me and uh you know we've been putting contact but thanks to everyone who's been so patient i'd rather upload quality videos and just quantity for views so i didn't have a video to upload i've just been doing a lot of work for clients and doing a lot of patinas artistic patinas and sometimes i don't have time to record everything so i've just been you know been really really busy with that my daughter had her one year birthday and i turned 31 years old in august so it's just been super busy um so thanks thanks everyone thank you for being patient i i am just as busy as everyone else and i have you know a business to run and a family to take care of so uh thank you to everybody um and if you want to get in contact with me please just be be really persistent be tenacious email me message me i won't get insulted i will get back to you if i see you enough i just sometimes i can't get down and answer everyone's emails and messages okay so thanks for being so patient now obviously the biggest challenge on these shoes is going to be the toe area so both toes are pretty scratched up and the soles i'm going to take to a cobbler to have them resold with jr soles but the uppers um you know are definitely a challenge i needed to make sure that all the scratches and the scrapes were removed because the shoe had to remain tan so that can be that can be pretty challenging in and of itself sometimes when you try to fix scratches areas darken and then it's just a nightmare so luckily i think everything came out pretty well i'm really happy with how the shoes turned out in the end but it did take me longer than usual and i was kind of running around and making sure everything looked perfect now i actually met a local cobbler who i didn't know was in town his name is isaac and he's my age which is really awesome he's a third generation shoe cobbler and he's a great resource to help me because i don't know how to resole shoes but he does and he's we really think alike we have the same type of you know vision for shoes so he was really someone i wanted to bring these shoes to to help me out for the video he's the owner of modern cobblery excuse me modern cobblery in encinitas california which is just about 20 minutes from san diego it's basically still san diego county but i'm always surprised how much i enjoy watching shoes be resold there's something really amazing about witnessing a shoe go from virtually useless to almost new again as you can see everything needs to be replaced from the old top lift to the entire sole now i know you've heard this about a million times here on this channel but goodyear welted shoes are just so fantastic because once the shoe's sole has been worn down you can get them resoled i know it's i'm probably preaching to the choir here because you already know that but for the art insider piece i really need to make sure that those watching and then i was interviewed over skype but i needed to i needed viewers to know that goodyear wilted shoes are just built to a higher standard uh they can be resold and uh it's just i think it's really great it really helps us to you know move away from a throwaway culture and i know my dad and i know a lot of other people who have shoes that they've had for 20 years plus and i do have shoes that are really old i have a pair from the 1920s making them about 100 years old or almost 100 years old and it just it just proves it just goes to show how long these shoes can last i think it's absolutely fantastic now overall i'd say the process is actually pretty simple but it's not easy at all and that's true i mean i just through a lot of things some things are really simple they're simple to do but they're not easy to do and i think resoling shoes is just one of those things it just requires more finesse than you'd imagine the old heel and sole are removed and a new leather sole is added on cut down to the appropriate size and is carefully sanded down to fit correctly and then a new groove channel is added before the stitching begins to ensure a durable replacement i decided to opt for johan rendenbach soles and they're you know commonly known as jr souls um which are made using traditional oak bark ground tan leather and that's a process that's been in use since 1871. the goodyear welting process ensures multiple resoles over the shoe's life meaning this pair still has a lot of life left and then isaac using a specialized machine uh attaches the new sole to the welt which in turn is attached to the leather upper portion of the shoe okay so i'm actually reading my notes here and i'm doing some commentaries this is really behind the scenes and in the video you might actually hear me you know saying stuff that it did not end up in the in the the final video so uh just you know be aware that this is backstage footage so some parts were not even relevant to the shoot process you know so this is uh this process is time tested and is really a hallmark of quality shoe making and i've already mentioned that once that step is completed the new heel can be added back to the sole using specialized nails and then the dovetail top lift is cemented on before uh being cut and shaved down to the appropriate size okay so going to see isaac is always really fun i love going to a store he he and his brother work there and they also sell some shoes but i always love just watching it all happen i mean i've seen it about 10 times myself but every time i try to make sure and pay careful attention because i'm trying to learn as much as i can and i told isaac one day i'll have to go up to the store and see if i can't you know give it a shot and see how well i would do trying to resole a pair of shoes um but yeah i opted for jr souls and i think they're the best souls i mean they're really prolific and popular but i really do think they are great it's not just you know advertising i really do think they last a long time um so i always try to opt for jr souls where i can okay so i thought this was pretty funny i had to act like i was talking to isaac about something important for the sake of the video so i'm actually not talking to him about anything shoe related i think i just told him stand there and make sure it looks like we're discussing something important uh you know i'll point to the shoe and we'll you know well it was for the sake of the video you know just to make it look more professional but i'm just trying to be honest that's kind of what goes into making a video especially if it's going to end up on art insider you kind of have to show yourself working and discussing how the project's gonna go and what your vision for the project is so this is kind of you know me you know putting that into video format so i think we were talking about food or something at this point but we just decided to make sure like we were we were talking about shoes so that's just uh something fun i thought i'd include i'll turn on the fan and uh and the fume extractor and open all their finish on it because i see that happen quite often yeah you'll see the jr salt the okay now isaac is cutting a groove channel here into the sole so that the stitches will be protected from wear now i know allen edmonds doesn't really do that anymore which i don't like at all but i always think a shoe should have deep chat a deep channel so that stitch will be protected and then isaac is using the machine a goodyear welt machine to stitch the sole to the welt which is in turn you know which is attached to the shoe in turn so that part is pretty nerve-wracking i don't know if i could ever do that myself but every stitch has to go in and you have to be really careful because if it's not um it's not done correctly the stitching could go everywhere and you see some jobs that are just really terrible the stitching comes out of the groove and into the sole so just got to be really careful and you know isaac did a really good job on this part so you know hats off to him so [Music] so okay and the shoes already look ten times better the soles definitely look perfect and i really want to thank isaac for doing such a great job so i'm going to start off on my portion by using a good varnished vintage shoe tree and those really just fill in the shoe really really well and you need that when you're going to be restoring a shoe especially if you're going to be reshaping a shoe using moisture from water or from acetone so always make sure you have a really good shoe tree so i started using acetone to remove all of the old polish since these are pretty old the allen edmonds still have the old logo so i'm assuming these are probably i don't know five to six years old so i'm going to be using some acetone to remove all of the gunk the polish the caked on factory finish that's really just gonna leave the shoe bare and ready for further work so that's just a really important part and additionally the acetone is really great at um you know making sure the leather kind of molds around the shoe tree so it just looks better overall and that's just a really important part as you can see here acetone evaporates in seconds so just don't use too much but use enough and just be aware that it will evaporate within a minute if you put too much but when you don't use a lot it goes away in seconds so just remove all you can and uh i'm using a q-tip here or a cotton swab to get into those small crevices sometimes creases really pinch nastiness in between them so you got to go in there and really you know remove all that stuff meticulously and carefully so uh just be patient and if you ever try this make sure that you use the appropriate tools and you'll do fine just be patient and it could take you you know an hour or two but don't worry about it ah okay now here's where the shoes you know are gonna be a challenge you see those little dings those little scratches they may not look like a lot but in reality they're gonna cause a lot of problems for the shining process and just for the longevity of the shoe so i'm gonna be using sandpaper and you have to find probably the finest sandpaper you can find or you can you can actually buy so at walmart the finest i could find was 3000 grit and using that sandpaper i'm just going to go back and forth and i'm going to remove the scratches so it's going to go into the leather and some of the leather will be removed but it's necessary unless you want to just leave the scratches there but i don't recommend it myself so i'm just going to go back and forth this part actually took me a while so you just kind of have to you know use a little bit and then um as you know you go further into the process you want to get finer sandpaper so i actually didn't start with 3000 i started with 300 and then after a while i started using 3000 with drops of water so you're kind of doing a wet sanding just to smooth it out and i found that you need to probably close your eyes and then touch the leather to make sure you don't feel a thing so i had to do the process over and over until it felt you know completely smooth and don't let your eyes trick you because sometimes there are still lines but close your eyes and touch it and if it feels completely smooth it's ready to go so just do that back and forth and don't don't be afraid of the process i mean the shoes are just going to be thrown away anyway so you might as well give it a shot and see if you can't restore them okay now once the shoes are baby bottom smooth i'm going to be using some saphir renovating cream and renovating cream contains pigment and some kind you know types of resin to fill in cracks and this is a really important you know product for filling in scratches if they're really minor you can just use a little bit with your finger but since these are pretty you know they're actually deeper than you might think i'm gonna have to be using that renovating cream so what i did is using a cotton swab i added some renovating cream on top of the scratch or the sanded down portion and then i used a hair dryer to dry the resin and then i started wet sanding again and then i added more uh more renovating cream and then i started wet sanding again once it was dry and i kept repeating the process again and again and again until it even until it felt even smoother so i think this part can be kind of difficult because you really got to be patient you can't add too much resin or renovating cream because it'll get gunky so you have to add just a tiny bit dry it sand it you add more it dries and you wet sand again and again and it's going to feel like glass when you're done and this is the part that took me a couple of hours and it can be kind of it can be kind of frustrating you're going back and forth and you're not sure if it's filling in you just have to be patient and wait for the result and i find that this is where a lot of people fail when it comes to shining shoes or restoring shoes they give up they're impatient they're frustrated they're anxious and they just don't do it right so that renovating cream is really important and it doesn't matter at this point what color is but i want it to be a brown shade but uh as long as it's in the brown shades you should be fine just don't use black it's going to be a lot harder to cover but add some renovating cream let it dry and then do what you have to do so once that was done i let the shoes dry overnight and then the next morning i had to you know i had to use a concoction it's kind of like you're not even using leather dye you're using a special type of leather paint leather cover you can use angelus there are a bunch of companies that do this but uh you have to mix the right color you gotta eyeball this is where you have to be kind of artistic where you have to kind of eyeball the right color to match it and i don't know if i did a perfect job but i think i did okay so i added this leather um restorer and some water and i mixed those up and it's not it's opaque so it's not see-through it's not like normal leather dye you can't use normal leather dye it has to be this type of leather paint and i mix tan and you know kind of a caramel color and kind of a medium brown color and i try to get that walnut to look as close as possible and you can apply this stuff with a paint brush or a sponge but i don't like it because it dries and there's like a texture to it kind of like cottage cheese i didn't want that at all so i had to use an airbrush gun and this is where i think the airbrush gun is completely irreplaceable when it comes to this actual job the airbrush really adds even coats and even layers and that's just so important so it doesn't build up and look nasty so i had to do was really blend it blend the toe area and kind of go further back into the normal rest the rest of the shoe so it kind of looked like it was just one color and that's going to cover up the renovating cream the scratches and kind of you know smooth everything out so it looks perfect now without without this leather restore it's really impossible to make the shoe look perfect again there's really no way you could dye the shoe a darker color and that would work but since in this segment i had to make sure the shoes stay tan i couldn't do anything else but this so the air gun's really important you're not adding a lot of layers in fact you're just doing the bare minimum to cover up the damage and then kind of blend it into the rest of the shoe and if you do it correctly it'll look a lot better i mean it won't look perfect but i don't think it needs to look perfect i think it just needs to look a lot better and then so you know so the shoe can be worn and restored and all of that so considering the damage that was done i'm really happy with how it came out okay so i let the shoes dry overnight and now it was time for the shoe shine so that's probably you've seen the most from me and i know the shoes look a little pale but we'll be adding some color and i started off using sofia renovator which as you all know already is my go-to i absolutely love it i don't think there is a conditioner as good as renovator so i use that just kind of nourish the leather and make sure it was all hydrated after you know this whole ordeal the shoes been through okay and now to add pigment into the shoe because they looked really a little too pale for my liking i used light brown and cognac from the madai door line which contains a lot of pigment and that really helped to invigorate the shoe make it glow a nice orange amber color and i really wanted to do that so the shoe didn't look dead i told my wife that she looks like a dead body i need to give it some life and that really helped to you know make the shoe look a lot better and then when i was done you know use a brush or a buffing a buffing cloth and just give it a nice glow of course i'm going to finish the shoe off with that signature mirror shine using pat deluxe from the madai duo line and i went with cognac which is another nice orange color and wax doesn't really have a lot of pigment in it anyway but i just wanted to make sure i added that little bit of whatever it had left into the shoe now as many of you already know and i'm sure you've already watched a bunch of my videos about it but a mirror shine is is probably the part what's my favorite part but it's the part that gives the shoe that really impressive look it really gives that shoe the shoe a really shiny appearance so as always start off by adding multiple sequential layers with your fingers you can add anywhere from eight to twenty and you just add a layer you know wait a second add more wait a second and keep adding so you're kind of building up the wax in layers but you're not polishing or buffing yet you're just adding layer upon layer i'm kind of building the base so that when you start using water it'll build up the shine much more quickly and you'll fill in the pores of the shoe because the shoe will not shine till you know whatever crevices and pores are filled in so it's another really important part if your shoe is not shining it's because the pores aren't filled in you have to kind of fill them all in and it'll glass over and that's when the mirror shine happens okay now you need a an ice cube and i found that the cold water helps the shine produce faster i don't know the science behind it but it does and then you need some water mixed with rubbing alcohol and and there's no exact formula i don't know how much you need just a little bit a tiny splash in the water and you add more if you need but that helps melt the wax because sometimes you'll apply the wax and it'll it won't get foggy but it just won't go anywhere it'll kind of get on there and gunk up so the water alcohol really just helps melt it all down quickly and then the shining can begin okay so you use uh use any cotton uh cloth that you might have but it has to be usually i found that 100 cotton works the best or if it's mixed with some spandex so it really gets tight around your fingers and then just go back and forth adding drops of water and a touch of wax you know in increments and that's just kind of what you're doing back and forth now this is a pretty tenaci uh tedious excuse me it's a tedious and boring you know process and it can take a long long time to produce a really nice mirror shine uh just be patient and um you have to just practice i i wish there was a way that someone could just get it down immediately but the best way to get perfect at it is to just practice and practice and practice and you'll learn stuff every time you'll learn how much pressure you might need how much water you might need um so just do it over and over and over i've mirror shined i don't know over thousands of pair maybe maybe over a thousand pairs i don't know if i've gotten to the 2000s but i've shined over a thousand pairs in my time and it just took that many pairs for me to learn how to mirror shine a shoe but the results are way worth it and i absolutely love doing it just be patient and you will do just fine all right now here are the shoes before and uh here they are after when i finished all right so i hope you liked how they turned out i had such an amazing time doing this piece for art insider and i'm glad you all stopped by to watch me restore the shoes and hopefully you got some you know an insider's look into what the elegant oxford is and how i film videos but um i mean i'm just really happy that the shoes have a new purpose they were going to be thrown away but now they can be worn again and i think that just goes to show and if anybody's watching this video and just feels like you know like they can't you know succeed or that their life is stuck in some terrible place remember if shoes can do it you can definitely do it it might take you shining a thousand pairs of shoes to learn how to get it all right but eventually you'll get it down and i really do believe that these you know shining shoes and the philosophy behind hashtag shine your shoes is that your shoes are an analogy for your life if you take care of them if you shine them they're gonna look way better and and if it's the same thing with life if you do your best if you you know make the right choices your life will end up in a better place so don't forget that that's part of what the elegant oxford is and i really hope you enjoyed this video and i will see you next time thanks thank you so much for watching i hope you enjoyed this video please like subscribe and share for more content in the future visit the elegantoxford.com if you'd like to purchase any of the shoe products you've seen me use make sure to check out my other videos as well if you'd like to learn more about the art of the shoe shine don't forget to look for me on facebook instagram and twitter at the elegant oxford remember to care for your shoes so they'll last you for years to come always put your best foot forward the small details matter most so don't forget to hashtag shine your shoes i'll see you next time

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 133,364

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Id: Uj5jTvr2mK4

Length: 26min 3sec (1563 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020