Fashion Forward #15 - Addicted To Brogue

If you've ever worn a good pair of leather boots you'll know just how empowering it is and how that solid first step can set the tone for the rest of your day. A lot of the past Fall/Winter runway shows featured solid boots and one in particular, the Brogue Boot, was more popular than the others. I am a big fan of the perforated look (brogueing, or perforating the surface of the shoe originated with the purpose of allowing water inside the shoe to drain out when the wearer crossed wet terrain) and I am glad more and more boots are manufactured using this technique.

A nice pair of Tricker's Brogue boots can be found at OiPolloi.com

How It's Made #5 - Cowboy Boots

Even James Dean, an all-time fashion icon wore them!

Even though cowboy boots have never and will never be my thing, it is interesting to see the amount of work it takes to fashion them. If you're a fan and would like to read more on Cowboy boots, check out Bootblog AllenBoots.

How It's Made #4 - Esquivel Shoes

The more time I spend in the USA the more I am impressed with the quality and craftsmanship of locally-made items, despite being quite biased due to my European upbringing. I talked about the Alden shoe factory a while back and now I want you to introduce you to a west-coast, California-based Luxury Shoe Manufacturer: Esquivel.

Even though Esquivel markets these marvelously finished pairs as Women's shoes,  there's nothing that I see that would make them unwearable by men. 

The following video is a slideshow of stills taken during the making of Esquivel shoes:

The Esquivel website does not feature an online store, however Esquivel shoes and boots can be purchased at Endless.com

There's just something I love about green leather

Fashion Forward #3 - Just Wearing My Blue Suede Shoes

Suede also Suède  (pronounced swayd) is short for Suède gloves, from French gants de Suède, gloves of Sweden, from Suède, Sweden. It has now represented as a type of leather that has a soft napped surface or any other fabric made to resemble suede.

In 1955, Carl Perkins wrote and recorded "Blue Suede Shoes" at the Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. This original recording is considered one of the most significant and groundbreaking American songs of the 20th Century. As you may know, a young newcomer named Elvis Presley recorded his own cover version the following year. 

Quote from Epauletshop.com

Blue suede has been heralded as this Spring and Summer seasons' IT trend and I can definitely attest to its veridicity. Even here in my little corner of Europe where trends take some time penetrating into, I have begun to see more and more guys and girls donning the blue suede shoe. The Style forums have featured a lot of detractors that recognize the visual value of blue suede but fail to see its practicality in daily style. 

Well I am here to tell both them and you that blue suede is definitely here to stay and wearing it can be done in a very natty and easy manner.

What has become a trend for European men, as far as I can tell, is matching the colour of their shoes to their top item of clothing, but always the same shade or if an appropriate shade was not available, using a non-coloured item instead. While it is harder to do this with some of the more eccentric shades shoes come in nowadays, blue suede shoes can be so easily matched with either a nice blue blazer (wool if it's winter, cotton or chambray if it's summer), a V-neck sweater and even a nice v-neck t-shirt if you're wearing a more casual/summery blue suede shoe.

For the more adventurous of you fashionistos, you can try matching the blue suede with another colour. When it comes to what kind of pants you're wearing, I'd recommend either a dark blue/raw denim pant (straight or slim cut of course) or doing what the very fashionable Italian fella did in the picture above and go with a white pant, preferably without a bottom cuff. In some rare occasions, if the opportunity arises you can match a darker shade of blue suede to a dark suit pant such as the gentleman below.

In the case of picking a top to go with your blue suedes, always remember to check the colour wheel to determine what the best match would be for your shade of blue. Generally, the complementary and the triad colours are the best matches, however in the case of blue, I find that it's generally best to stick with just the complementary colour, orange (much like the shade of the Vespa above). If you do like to use some contrast, depending on the specific shade of blue the appropriate matching colours range from greenish yellow to purplish red.

Here is a compilation of some of my favourite blue suede shoes, which now come in great variety.

1. Alden for Epaulet Navy Suede Perkins Chukka - $425; 2. ACNE Delhi Suede Lace Boaters - $467; 3. Opening Ceremony Suede Desert Boot; 4. Closed Distressed Boot - $321; 5. A.P.C. Blue Suede Boots - $330; 6. Gordon Rush Royal-Blue Suede Chukka Boot for Saks Fifth Avenue - $495; 7. Emerica Reynolds  Blue Suede Cruisers - $59.99; 8. CAR SHOE Suede Tie Loafer - $372; 9. Dolce&Gabbana Navy Suede Shoes - $500; 10. Supra Vaider High Blue Suede Skate Shoes - $74.99

Last but not least, suede in general is very sensitive and blue suede isn't any exception. I would rather say blue suede is more delicate and sensitive than other naturally occurring coloured suedes. 

Here is a video on how to care for your suede:

You can purchase a Suede Care Kit from Amazon.com. It features a Suede Protective Spray, a Suede Cleaner Concentrate, a Suede brush and a Suede Scuff Eraser for only $10.85

Chukka chuck chuck?!

While a final acceptable answer for the wood-chucking dilemma is yet to be found, the fruit of the collaboration between J.Crew and shoe-classic Sperry Top-Siders® is by no means unsatisfactory.

The J.Crew Original nubuck chukka Sperry Top-Siders ® boots are a mix between a chukka boot, defined by Princeton's online dictionary as a shoe that comes up to the ankle, laced through two or three pairs of eyelets and often made of suede and a classical boat shoe.

These boots, vaguely reminiscent of the 70s, are definitely a collector's item. Whilst J.Crew originally sold them in both Chocolate and Espresso, only the latter is still in stock and can be purchased online at Jcrew.com

Lined with cotton chambray, these boots can be worn with or without socks and paired with a straight-leg(Dur) dark denim jean in order to maintain that preppy look into the colder seasons.

Is Knit the new IT?!

I've recently developed a new mini-obsession with knit ties which probably spawned from their slow resurgence into fashion and my foray into my dad's 80s vintage wardrobe. Therefore I have added a few cool old knit ties to my wardrobe and on top of that, out of summer bum-boredom, I resurfaced my knitting skills (Home-Ed in 7th Grade had the entire class, boys and girls together, knitting for an entire semester) and with the help of my grandma, knitted myself an awesome tie that cost about 2$ (handiwork is obviously priceless) and which sells for approximately $50 at J.Crew.

My online inquest on knit ties and various ideas on how to best match knit ties and their patterns in existing outfits, brought me to a "look" that combines my new found infatuation and my previous fancy, desert boots, both:

Recap: Shawl Collar Cardigan, White Shirt, B&W Striped Knit Tie, Black Straight/Slim Jeans and a good pair of timeworn desert boots (John Varvatos in the look above) makes for a cool casual night out or preppy college campus look.