The Difference Leather Dye and Shoe Polish can Make. Gaziano & Girling St. James II get a Makeover.

you know what's crazy is i still get really nervous when i start a video and i start to get tongue twisted and tongue-tied i feel like everyone's just watching me as soon as i hit the record button i'm like everyone's gonna be seeing this so i get really really nervous so welcome back everyone to the elegant oxford it is sunday night and i'm relaxing at the end of the day and i'm gonna work on a pair of shoes but i really wanted to make a video for this particular pair since i don't get this company in very often and that company is gaziano and girling out of england this model is called the st james number two for those who've been watching my channel for a long time i have featured this shoe before in an older video but i think i've gotten better at shoe shining since then at least i think i have so hopefully this video will be better uh and the shoes will look better too and if they don't i will have failed miserably they did like it was told buff those shoes to a high mirror shine for those who don't know godziano and girling they're out of england and they're really popular because they're on several row and they were started by tony gaziano and dean girling who were really prolific shoemakers and they came together to start a really amazing company they've gotten really really popular recently if you go on instagram and you can check out their shoes they make some very beautiful and artistic looking shoes now these are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination they retail for about 1200 usd which is a lot i mean the shoes i review are usually between 200 and 800 at the top end now but gaziano and girling along with john lobb and edward green they're the high-end english shoemakers and they don't mess around they make some pretty nice shoes i know some of you may not like this particular style which is a chisel toe but you should check out their other shoes godzilla girling really does make some amazing shoes this video isn't sponsored at all i just i really wanted to showcase the shoe before i send it back because i don't get them very often i think when you get into the higher echelon of shoe making especially the english shoes they take a lot of pride in the leather quality so they do cost a lot and that's because they select only the best hides and when you touch a pair of gaziano girling or john lobb or edward green you'll immediately notice how premium the leather is it's only you know it's really high end super super soft and malleable but it it even wrinkles uh more beautifully if i can say that than other companies some wrinkles get really deep and they look really harsh i've noticed with these shoes and i've shined you know a lot is that a shoe will crease normally because shoes are supposed to crease their leather but when you put a shoe tree in it pops in beautifully and you can't even feel the crease it's amazing and these are aren't i mean they're slightly used the shoes they have some creasing here on the vamp so i've always enjoyed how premium the leather quality is um if you guys own any pairs of godzilla girling let me know in the comments section i'd like to hear about it so i see him on instagram all the time some of their styles are absolutely beautiful what i'm going to do is i'm going to strip these down add a darker burgundy color and then i'm going to add some burnishing and give them the best mirror shine you've ever seen and they're going to go back to their owner and hopefully he'll love him so let's get started on the video okay so i'm going to tape off the shoe first you don't want to get leather dye on the edges because these are brown they're actually really smooth and nice if you get leather down these it's going to be really hard to take off so we're going to want to use blue painters tape this stuff goes on really easily and then comes off just as easily so just get a little strip right alrighty just put some in on the edge you can use your thumbnail or another small tool just do that and we're going to go all the way around and we're going to get ready before we take off the laces and start the die so let's continue all right the shoe is all taped off you might actually hear my kids screaming in the background it's lunchtime so it's probably unavoidable this shouldn't take you very long though unlike the spectators i did last video which took me about an hour each it's just the edges so it should take you about two three minutes per shoe now i have to remove the finish using acetone and i know it's gonna make some people nervous it made me very nervous the first time i did it on a thousand dollar pair of shoes but uh it's gotta be done so uh the toes already kind of burnished but we're gonna remove that so get the acetone here you can buy that hey i bought this at home depot or lowe's they sell it in these huge canisters and i usually wear gloves for this but here we go let's just start removing that finish and i know it looks really really ugly right now but that's just the acetone when you brush it it'll look a lot better that whitening that whitening effect is just the acetone doing its job and that's the finish that's being removed it's kind of black here kind of a burnish but let me show you what happens when you go to the upper area here we go it's going to immediately lighten it evaporates in seconds so acetone really doesn't stick around very long you can already see that light cherry color right under there and that's what you want you want the bare leather we're not going overboard we're not going so far that it's tan just removing that factory finish so the dye the leather dye will cure into the leather so there we go this is such high quality leather it's unbelievable okay here we go just like that don't be too nervous okay yeah this tow area is pretty dark so we're gonna have to we're really gonna have to go over it a couple times and after a while you should move over to a clean cloth a clean section on your cloth because the it can get pretty dark here so there we go sounds like an airplane's flying over my house i don't know if you can hear it in the background but uh there you go let's switch over whew i've used this rag a lot let's here we go this is a clean section right here get some more acetone okay and we'll keep on going there we go yeah that whitening effect is the acetone so don't get too nervous okay and brush the area you'll notice it'll just there we go it'll just look a lot better but we're not done yet so we're gonna have to keep removing it and head off to the entire shoe okay so i have the door open to get some fresh air in so sorry if it's a little bit louder but i'm gonna start the leather dye process i'm actually gonna go a different route than i thought i actually like these this lighter pink color so i'm going to put burgundy dye in my airbrush and then i'm going to add start adding the reds in first and then use the blacks afterward but the reds are going to cover the shoe but i'm going to leave some slight highlighted areas for a dynamic look and then when i shine the shoe it'll all blend a lot better so bear with me as i as i actually do this it might look a little ugly at first so let's get started and uh i'll keep you updated as i add the leather dye i'll have my mask on so sorry if it sounds a little muffled but uh here we go let me sit down already there we go so essentially i'm just shading everything in like i'm shading a circle on a piece of paper with a pencil to make it look 3d i'm kind of doing that with the airbrush using burgundy so it looks more dynamic back and forth remember you can move your hand backward to give yourself a better shading effect the closer you are the more precise it's going to be so move your hand back and spray from afar to cover more ground and it's a skill you got to learn just like using a brush believe it or not i know some people don't believe that but here we go okay so ah let me sit down here all right so i i used burgundy die and i left these areas right here and right here kind of as a highlighted area some of it right here and i haven't used black at all i know it looks pretty dark but you can use different colors to add some really strong shading which is kind of what i want and then i'm going to use a little bit of black just to accentuate those areas and really get what i want i might actually add some more red here some more burgundy kind of even it up but this is just a step to show you the progress so far and once they're shined they're gonna look a lot better and you're gonna all see it come together perfectly okay here's the difference between both shoes okay so this area still the same underneath let that school bus pass and you'll see that i'm just flavoring the shoes i'm putting a little bit of a spin on them using shading and color just two colors except i'm going darker and and using shading using that color to kind of give it a dynamic look remember with airbrush the closer you go the darker it'll be because you're really concentrating and the further away it really sprays it out the cone gets wider and it it makes it a little bit lighter spreads it out more evenly so let's get to the next shoe okay we're making pretty good progress so so far i've only used burgundy but as you can see i've shaded in these areas correctly and it looks a lot darker than this area right here in this area up here which is exactly what i want but once i come in with the black it's really gonna you know make that juxtaposition between red burgundy and black more apparent and that's what i'm looking for so shading using that artistic eye to make sure it looks right so i'm shading along the contours and hopefully it looks good to you i mean i'm pretty happy where it's coming out so far i'm not going to use a lot of black but i am going to kiss and make sure that everything looks properly shaded and then we can get to shining the shoe so let's get ready with the black first so okay so the shoes are all done and now i'm going to condition add some pigment and also shine the shoes using colored shoe cream now my favorite is from the mdo line you can use probably three colors here you can use burgundy it's called bordeaux number eight it's a it's a good color it actually looks pretty purple but it goes on pretty burgundy but probably not the best color for this shoe but you can use it and it's going to look really really great then there's my personal favorite which is air maze red number 12. it's really a deep rich ox blood color my absolute favorite really goes great with these burgundy oxblood shoes and then there is the brand new actual red so this one's 11 num red straight red nothing different nothing special about it but i'm happy because mdo is finally releasing different colors the bdc line which is the less expensive line there's over 90 plus colors i sell them all there's like lime green and hot pink anything you can think of it's in the bdc line although it doesn't condition as well and the pigment isn't as strong the mdo line is releasing new colors which red oatmeal steel gray other other colors so this one's actually going to be really good for these light areas use less than you think and rub it in with your fingers and it's going to look really really great and we also have this i'm really happy about a matching red wax which i'm super super excited about i always like using a light colored wax when i'm mirror shining a patina with a shoe with a patina so instead of using black or anything like that i'm going to be using red the light color and it blends everything really perfectly so that i'm really really happy about so let me just show you right away we got a little bit of red you're going to use a lot less than you think okay you can even get some from the cap right on your finger it's really really rich right just add a little tiny bit and then just rub it in okay take your time don't use a lot that's why i don't recommend you use a shine rag or an applicator just shine just like that a little tiny bit at a time and you'll notice how how much pigment these mdo creams have i'm not kidding try it out just try it out once and i guarantee you're going to be really impressed how much pigment they have and how easily they go right in and condition the leather and then how well they shine with just one quick brush and one application haven't found one product that does all three just as well so i'm a big fan of mdl i got some here inside the uh i think you can hear my baby crying in the background it's bedtime so they always get really really ornery around this time they don't want to go to bed so you're probably gonna hear my son or my daughter yelling which is okay they're just little kids now yeah see my fingers are completely red now let me find my brush real quick now if you get some cream in the holes just dab it out you should be completely fine okay just apply some there and then you can apply some here in these lighter areas it really just does a fantastic job you know i forgot some black if you want to use a little bit of black around here just take your time and condition the entire shoe and you'll be all set so i recommend you use your fingers and then after you just wash your fingers there's nothing wrong with that at all okay so i'm going to condition the rest of the shoe and then we're going to apply the mirror shine and we'll be all done alrighty let's brush this one off just one quick application and a brush you'll immediately notice it's looking a lot better you actually stand up telling you there's nothing like mdo cream it just shines so well with one application really fantastic now we get started in the mirror shine there's that wax gosh there's nothing like touching brand new wax i'm telling you so we're gonna as always add sequential layers to the toe cap and i'm gonna add like 10 to 15 okay the brand new wax has so many solvents in it it just applies so easily i love it it's gonna make for a beautiful mirror shine guaranteed wax already has just not very much pigment anyway but the lighter the better as long as it's colored maybe not neutral but colored cream is really going to make a difference but the red is going to blend the black and the burgundy perfectly so it's going to keep adding layers maybe you can see how good this wax looks but it took off the tape just looks and feels so good so i got something all over my fingers i'm just going to keep applying it it's really more of a pate deluxe is more of a wet wax while mirror gloss is dryer and mirror gloss shines faster but i think pat deluxe in the end gives the best shine so we're just going to keep adding layers more than you think till it's all covered then we can start the mirror shine it's kind of a tedious process to be honest but it's worth it just keep going back and forth like always you're going to be set all right now when you get to this exact point i have about i'd say 20 to 30 layers on here you don't need to put that many i personally like to do that it just makes the job easier for me but you may not even have to do it this way you can do it the traditional way i just found that this kind of puts a barrier of lubrica of lubrication so that i don't accidentally pull off wax or pull off a leather dye or anything like that so once you get to this point find a clean part of your rag right clean part because you're starting the shine new if you have a rag that's pretty used you might have to find another section or get another rag so it has to be pretty clean okay just like that you're gonna get your alcohol water solution just wet it a tiny tiny bit just like that make sure it's not too wet too over saturated and then we're going to start okay so just start to buff and this rubbing alcohol and water is really going to lubricate the process and start to melt those waxes down and you touch the wax just a tiny bit that's why i like pack deluxe so much over mirror gloss even though mirror gloss is fantastic pat deluxe just has more solvents and it just keeps the whole process lubricated the shine comes through really really really quickly okay now if you need more help you can watch my dedicated guaranteed shine mirror shine tutorial not perfect at all but we're already getting a mirror shine to come through it's really that simple i'll be honest uh gaziano and girling always shine very quickly some leathers don't cooperate and shine as quickly but this is just what you get when you mess with high quality leathers and the wax is all on there you've done the work previously by putting down those 30 layers or more and you're just buffing it and adding more wax and you're honestly realistically going to do this for a while and you add a drop of water the second it feels rough to the touch add a lubrication of some kind either wax or a water drop because if you don't you're gonna start to pull off wax it's gonna get too dry so you want it to feel like it's gliding the entire time okay back and forth back and forth simple as usual there you go all right before i reveal the shoes i have a special discount for all of you as many of you know cobbler union is having their winter sale until the end of february which is their largest sale of the year there are a ton of models discounted for the entire month of february both best sellers and last call models with free shipping and free returns for any sale models too to add to this sale i have a special extra 10 off code for my viewers that stacks on top of any sale or non-sales shoe as well for those who wanted the code is elegant cobbler 10. this code allows you to get some amazing sale pairs for under 250 dollars i've already reviewed three of their pairs and i highly recommend cobbler union so remember the coupon stacks on top of the current sale so it's an extra 10 off any sale or non-sale item i'm not making any money off of this at all it's just a helpful code to give back to fans of cobbler union and the elegant oxford hope it helps now i don't want to toot my own horn but i just absolutely love how these came out it's so pleasing to see your hard work pay off and uh i'll be honest it's gaziano and girling they deserve the credits their shoes are just fantastic and the leather really cooperates every time sometimes working on shoes can be so frustrating and then when it comes all to comes together in the end it's just really pleasing and it's such a relief so hopefully you like the shoes i think they shined so well i even got a nice shine on the heel so i hope you like them and i hope that cobbler union discount code helped you as well it's 10 off even sale prices so hopefully that works for you also visit the elegantoxford.com to purchase any of the items you saw me use today it helps support the channel and i really appreciate all you guys going over and buying stuff from the online store thanks again like subscribe share and leave a comment down below tell me if you liked what i did so thanks for watching and i will see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: The Elegant Oxford

Views: 57,260

Keywords: Gaziano and Girling, English Shoes, Patina, Saphir, Leather dye, Goodyear welt, John Lobb, Edward Green, Allen Edmonds, Mirror Shine

Id: ojI3XFvVvr4

Length: 24min 58sec (1498 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 03 2022