Know Your Shoes : the Oxford

gentlemen welcome for this new episode of our video series called SATA wall talks [Music] today we'll have the pleasure to welcome you in a very special place first of all the building where we are is called Ponce city markets is located in Atlanta in Georgia the United States of America and this place which was open a little bit less than two years ago has become very quickly one of the must-see and must go place in Atlanta because they try to recreate in this city the ambience and the warmth of a European market so we are quite proud to be in this place today and specifically in this shop Cobb reunion is also a very good example of what is happening currently in the world of luxury men's shoes a little bit of history so in the late 1990s the shoe market for men was easy to understand on one hand you had bad quality shoe for people who were wearing shoes because they needed to have something on their feet in order to walk in the street but I have no aesthetic and on the other hand you had wealthy people were educated in the subject who were buying the high brand and the very very good quality shoes but they were unaffordable like veloute in front like journal AB like this kind of brown who were from the vast majority of the people unaffordable in terms of prices I used to go remarkable this is where the veloute shop was historically located the first Berluti shop and I was going there on Sundays to look at the windows and to admire this amazing shoes for example the Lutie had the first hole cut the hole cut shoe is just a shoe which is which has only one cat that is to say one cut nothing else this this shoe was absolutely it was called alessandro was absolutely gorgeous but it was the cost of the issue was at the time 5000 french francs to give you a reference the average salary of a man in France back in these years was something around 3,500 to 4,000 Frankenmuth at these very pair of who was more expenses than what more expensive than the salary of a normal person in France of course I didn't have the means to buy this shoe so this is why I was going on Sunday because staying two hours in front of a window at mine your shoe when there's people inside the shop can be a little bit embarrassing at least on some day I was not embarrass and I could stay hours in front of this shop to look at those shoes the internet changed the whole picture why and this is the paradox of the internet that the Internet can be looked upon something very technological very quick where people don't really dig inside subject and just Bros pictures etc but on the other side a lot of sectors and domain like shoe making for example to Reba come interesting for the people in now you have an enormous crowd of gentlemen of all ages and specifically young gentlemen who have a renewed interest in the world of shoemaking and in the world of luxury shoe and cobbler Union is a good example of this movement because now more and more around the planet you can find affordable shoes made according to the Gospel of shoemaking by artisans and now the gentleman who is interested in quality shoes can can afford these shoes and can have a collection of shoes and can make a statement with beautiful shoes so something is happening in this market which is probably one of the most dynamic market in the fashion industry since the last decade and as far as I know and it's the first time in history that men shoes may be a little bit more dynamic than women shoes globally so it's an interesting market and cover Union is a good example of what is happening so we would like to take this opportunity to be in such a shop which presents a lot of classic shoes to do a special episode or series of special episodes about the from kind of shoes and to start with for this first episode we're going to speak specifically about the most classical the ultra classical shoe for men which is called an Oxford and an Oxford it's actually an extension of something else that was used before the in the before the middle of the 19th century Sonya yes in fact back in the 1840s and earlier only boots were worn with suits no one wore shoes with with suits and that's precisely because the road were in such bad form in fact we call them dirt roads in the south everything including a storefront property had no sidewalks so the boot was worn with the suit here we have what we call today a Balmoral boot but we can say that this barbegal boot might be the ancestor of what we call today an Oxford so you understand we've been switching from this which is coming back in fashion these days but I will explain more why later but that was the original one and it became the low shoe like that because year after year the pavement have been built and it was easier to walk industries so what I show you here it's what we call an Oxford I don't know why in America it's also called a Balmoral which is a misuse a little bit of the word because a bomber role is something a little bit more specific that I will explain to you later that is named after the castle of Balmoral which is since mid 19th century one of the favorites vacation residence of the British royal family the castle of Bergamo what I have in my hand is a classical Oxford what is an Oxford it's a simple pair of shoe mostly formal in which you have eyelets that are directly inside the vamp of the shoe so it's easy to understand what I have in my hand it's actually called today an austerity bra and once again it's bizarre how we use the words because it's what we call a blog is a shoe it has perforation on it and this one has no perforation so by default we call it austerity broad means abroad without perforation is like saying the car without wheels but that's another story so this is the basic of the basic which has been named after the Oxford University and according to the sources has been invented in Scotland or Ireland but in any case in Great Britain you can actually go a little more formal if you take quality calfskin and give it a high shine which we're told could take up to two to three days of work but gives this the versatility of being able to become a semi-formal shoe so you can wear with the tuxedo for example so I think that would be the epitome of a formal shoe unless you want to bump it up to the Opera shoe which could be worn for a formal suit opera - which is called a pump we don't have a pump right now but it's extremely rare on the market very few people are still wearing these shoes so this is the Oxford now we move to the next thing so it's still an Oxford but you see the difference between the two this one has no perforation this one has perforations everywhere okay this is what we call the brogue actually this is what we call in this case a half bra because it had it have some perforation but not too much perforation in opposition to this which is called a full bra that we can see you have a lot of perforation everywhere what is the story behind this famous broad originally it has been created for a technical reason as this was worn of course outside and specifically in Great Britain and sorry for my friend from the United Kingdom but United Kingdom is well known for the fact that it's raining a lot so when you are going outside this small hole had had technical use back in the years it's to help the water to get away from the shoe so to drain the water out of the shoe that was the original idea so today this broguing this perforation only have an aesthetic value people love to use this as a decoration on the show the rule that I would like you to remember the less drugs you have on the shoe the more formal is your shoe the more preparation you put on your shoe the more casual you should become and it's easy to understand look a shoe without perforation is immediately more formal the shoe is a little bit of perforation start to be a little bit more casual but these days it's totally okay to wear this with a business suit but if you go to a much more brogue shoe like this one this one start to be a little bit more casual than this one so the rule is this one the less perforation the more formal the most perforation the more casual it's quite easy to remember on these three shoes you have those two shoes who have what we call the cap toe which is the end of the shoe this one has no perforation this one is perforation and this one is called the wingtip as you can see at the end of the shoe you have this wing we call it a wingtip and that's a rule also here that I would like to explain to it if you are a man with very long feet it's good for you to wear this kind of wingtip where the distance between the wingtip here and this part of the shoe is very short because it has the effect to shorten a little bit the proportions and to show your feet in a less bigger way but if on the contrary you have a short foot it's better for you to choose shoes which wingtip will be more to the from of the show that will elongate your foot so this is what we call a wingtip and really it's all about proportions right yes so if you're looking at a man who's wearing a nice suit and it looks like his feet or helps no skis on the bottom the proportions off right so he can pull that wing up and to the eye and make it actually shortened to the foot we started with this and I'm gonna I want to come back with this because this is as Sonia explained back in the until the mid 19th century people were wearing boots mostly high boots but also ankle boot I told you at the beginning of this episode that in this country the United States of America some people have the habit to code on Oxford or Balmoral which is a misuse of the world because Balmoral is describing this feature that is to say this line of perforation that go all the way from the front to the back of the shoe this is what we call the Balmoral shoe okay so the feature of a Balmoral shoe is this line which is straight from the front to the back of the shoe I show you something which is not a Balmoral you see this one has a wave it goes down and then it goes up again this is not a Balmoral perforation this is a bummer all perforation now we move with Sonya to one of my favorite subject which is called the specter spectators who is sorry it's difficult for me as a French to say a spectator shoe we say spectator in French I remember the first shoe we saw on Parisian gentleman three years ago from Cabo Union was precisely spectatorship so what is a spectator shoe but that's very simple the explanation is contained inside the name the spectator shoe is a shoe for spectators which spectators back in the user where the people who were attending cricket games for us French cricket game is a very esoteric game to understand the people who were attending cricket on cricket fields where most of the time wearing spectator shoes and what is the definition of a spectator shoe a spectator shoe is always by colour he always had two colors it's a broad because it's a shoe that you were outside and the reason why the darkest part of the shoe was in the front and the clearest part of the shoe were more on the body of the shoe was to protect the body so we a spectator shoe he's made this way the part that are more in contact with the grass and with the field are dark and the the part of the shoe are not in contact with the field and the grass are clearer in order to protect the aesthetic of the shoe this is a sure also that has seen a revival since a few years it's also very linked to the jazz industry and to the jazz ambience a lot of jazz man used to wear this bicolor shoe has kind of a you know jazz back in the years was a kind of a rebellion music visit from music from rebels and wearing bicolor shoes was also a statement for Jasmine you know to to say okay we know the rules we know the norm but everybody is wearing black shoes we like to wear black and white shoes just as a statement so this is the story of a spectator shoe and cobbler Union is doing as you can see a beautiful one last but not least this is probably the most simple shoe but the most difficult shoe to to make for shoe makers and you remember I was speaking about this famous shoe called Alessandro and at the Lutie in the 1990s it is what we call the hole cut so as you can see a hole cut it's simple it's a simple shoe which is which is an Oxford but with no capital with no perforation with nothing else then a simple cut in the middle in order to have a perforation for the islands this is the most simple shoe but the most difficult to produce why because when you have nothing to distract the eye everything is in the last may I remind you for the shoe aficionado of course you know this by heart but the last is the shape of a shoe not to shoes have the same last and you can see a last of a shoe specifically at the end of the shoe this one is a kind of a classical lass but with a little we call it a chisel okay and Sonia is showing you what is the last so we we start suits with this kind of thing which is this last is quite chiseled also you can see here what is interesting in the whole cut is that you have nothing to distract your eye so it's the cut and the last that you see and say most of the time if you want to spot a good shoemaker look at his hole cut and it will tell you immediately if you are in a good place for shoes or not and this one is absolutely gorgeous what I like about this one specifically is of course it is a ready-to-wear shoe but there's some nice features here for example if you flip the shoe over you notice that the waist is is fairly narrow for a ready-to-wear shoe you can see a lot of detail and the way it's sculpted on the bottom of the shoe and secondly this is a very nice feature that the the lace closure is quite tight you're not seeing the open V now depending on how your foot is built you might get some opening right here if your foots wider but it's a very nice lace closure in this shoe you'll notice the place to where it's cut is in the back when they call it a hole cut and some shoemakers bespoke - makers are actually even able to avoid this cut there's only one cut here and so it's gorgeous you you can really see the refinement of the shape because of the lack of cuts in the shoe this is a statistic statement to have a hole cut shoe I may had on this one this is quite unusual for ready-to-wear this is what we call a bevel waist a violin bevel waist to be more precise here you have what you call the shank there's a nice story about the shank the shank is a small piece of plastic or metal or wood or leather depending on the construction of the shoe which is placed here in order to reinforce the shoe when you're dealing with the hole cut you can really see whether you have good or poor quality as you know there are natural defects in every piece of leather you're talking about insect bites even the stress level of the cows can sometimes be seen and the quality of the the leather the quality of the leather and this shoe it appears quite nicely if you can see there's little variation in color the shoe looks like it's been sourced from the from a great leather company and it's just something to be aware of when you get a hole cut to really take a look at the leather quality and before you invest in the shoe and for that you have to believe in your eyes but also in your hand so we've been covering in this episode the Oxford shoe which is the main category of men's shoe specifically for business and formal shoe austerity blogs cap-toe blogs wingtip full brogue Balmoral boots spectator shoe and hole cut I hope I will have the pleasure to see you again in the next episode of soot Oriole talks Cheers [Music]

Channel: SARTORIAL TALKS

Views: 549,980

Keywords: Sartorial Talks, ST, Men's style, parisian gentleman, PG, Hugo Jacomet, Sonya Nicholson, Sonya Glyn Nicholson, Men's shoes, Oxford, Oxford shoes, spectator shoes, Spectator, One Cut shoes, one cut, dress shoes, elegance, sartorial, What shoes to wear, Origin of shoes, balmoral, dandy, boots

Id: NqvqC2fPuk4

Length: 19min 15sec (1155 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/badger0511]

Is this from an alternate HP universe where Harry and Draco open a men's shoe store in their 50s?

[u/MICHA321]

This guy is fantastic. I've been binging his entire channel. I've learnt so much about traditional men's style and fashion history. Thanks for posting! :)

[u/[deleted]]

Pausing this video on any frame will make your wallet cry

[u/SkiFreeSasquatch]

Really like this video. V. interesting breakdown of the terminology and history of the different types of oxfords.

[u/flames_bond]

Interesting overview, detail and history on the Oxford shoe from this funny looking Frenchman.

Covered some others here too -

The Derby

Ankle Boots & Loafers

[u/MFA_Nay]

This was great to watch, didn't even know The Satoralist did Youtube videos like this.

Thanks for posting /u/flames_bond !

[u/Your_Favorite_Poster]

I really like him as a host but it would be helpful if they used some on-screen text to help with a few of the pronunciations. Great information!

[u/iLoveBoobeez]

What's happening with his tie though? New here, so I'm curious if he did it on purpose.

[u/lordeddardstark]

I could be wrong but isn't that just a regular captoe, though? Austerity brogues have wingtips with no broguing