#bootmaker

Sneakers have thus massively replaced classic shoes. Of course, they would. Requiring only limited skills, having the simplest of designs and the cheapest of materials, they can be quite profitably produced.

The marketing of cool can take care of business, promoting a vague legacy of sports and a dynamic outlook. It’s really the epitome of the urban upper class desperately wanting to flaunt their shameful corporate coolness. Hence the ‘sneakers and suit’ oxymoron (emphasis on the second part of the word), claiming sartorial finesse and the arrogance of sheepish transgression.

One can only wonder at the short-term and self-defeating strategy of sartorial shoe brands who try and sell expensive sneakers.

The dress shoe is about leather. And leather is a cultural connection to history and man’s attempts at protecting their feet. Boots may have been all the rage at a time, but their domesticated outcome was the urban and ubiquitous low shoe: derbies and oxfords and loafers, monk and spectator shoes.

The World Championships in Shoemaking reminds us regularly to celebrate the corresponding skills and aesthetic legacy. The geek in us may be fascinated by technical aspects — welts and Cuban heels, channel closings and waistlines — but what makes a shoe a show-stopper is its design.

There’s magic in the mysterious balance of patterns and shapes. It’s actually what makes a shoe something of a live leather sculpture. The enigmatic seduction of a last, the minute details, the infinitesimal punctum of an eagle-clawed toe— it’s all winking at you in the subtlest of ways.

The sure-footed principles of basic models like oxfords and derbies are a foundation enabling a wealth of adornments—brogueing, medallions, Balmoral line— open to interpretation and invention, leading to renewal within permanence. The classic dress shoe is about those patterns that can be transformed into new designs with an infinity of expressions and nuances, of colours and shades. As a common enough accessory, the shoe is thus a strangely unsettling and forever surprising source of subtle shapes.

As for many things, consumerism has replaced maintenance and skills by blind forgetfulness and it would seem — at least in Paris — that not many people still know how to shine their shoes. It explains why high-gloss workshops have been burgeoning like secret Victorian parlours displaying marvels for the initiated enthusiasts to gather after dark (like the wonderful Mes Chaussettes Rouges workshop by @quenteu). It seems to be the last resort to preserve a dying practice.

Still, well-maintained quality shoes quietly shining at the end of your leg add a smiling glow to an outfit, and as a reminder of forgotten craftsmanship, they truly show what they are about, blending authentic practicality and portable aesthetic pleasure.

Shoes by Aubercy, Crockett & Jones, Aubercy et Yohei Fukuda