Scheer of Vienna

[Etutee]

No, I haven't been to Vienna yet, but I have a trip booked from May 9th to 13th.
I promise to report here.

Rolf

alright Rolf.... let us hear it! What's the final verdict?

I have been waiting...

sincerely
etutee

[bengal-stripe]

Here we go:

Just back from Vienna, I have never eaten so many cream cakes and so much ice cream in my life.

I do not know what to make of Scheer. I was thinking about getting (RTW if possible, otherwise bespoke) a pair of Derby Full Brogue “Budapester” in Vienna as an ankle boot. So I went to Scheer first (right around the corner from Knize).

You enter the shop, dimly lit is an exhibition case featuring the shoes and lasts of the Kaiser, the Austrian Emperor and selected kings and princes. (I might have missed a few, but I cannot recall anyone from the artistic or cultural life. No shoes for Freud, Musil, Oscar Werner, Karajan etc. Nobody is there to greet you, until you see the sign ‘Please, go upstairs’. Up you go and there is Markus Scheer the young-ish (mid-thirties) Director who took over from his grandfather a few years ago. In it’s 190 years, the company has only been run by members of the original family.

Scheer does not have any samples, nor a collection of pictures and styles. (If they have, I wasn’t shown them). All the shoes standing around (in various stages of completion) were waiting for their respective customers. The shoes were nice, but there was nothing grabbing me. Considering that Scheer’s prices are more than twice what other firms in Vienna charge, I wasn’t given any introduction what made Scheer special compared with others. Several times Scheer put emphasis on “we are not a Viennese firm, we’re separate.” I had always presumed that the ‘banana last’ (popular in Vienna and with Alan Flusser) was the invention of the house, but Scheer denied that. He denied the firm having any style at all and that there was only one last, the one that was correct for the customer. (Contrasting that with Knize, where a passionate and knowledgeable salesman demonstrated all the ins and outs of the firm’s house style, although I had made it clear, that I was not really in the market for a bespoke suit.)

He also said that a number of years ago, the firm had taken the decision not to travel as they could not maintain the quality that way, and he felt more and more that this was the right decision. Obviously Scheer aims to take the company into a somewhat different direction, judging by the website, although I’m not sure if Prada stripes along the heel are the right thing (picture in the Design section).
http://www.scheer.at/

The shoe that I saw at Scheer had that certain Austro/Hungarian heaviness, but not to the same degree as the output of other Viennese firms. I donät think zou could mistake then for English, French or Italian. Probably their signature designs are the whole cuts and the “half cuts” (a raised seam running down the vamp). They were certainly miles away from that very English or maybe even French looking pair (I presume from the 1930s) that “centipede” exhibits on his site:
(Maurice Chevalier could have worn them down the Champs Elysées):
http://centipede.web.fc2.com/r-scheer.html

For whatever reason, I presume Mr Scheer and I didn’t hit it off. But I did buy a belt after all (no, it was not Scheer‘s own production).

Rolf
to be continued about other firms in Vienna

[le.gentleman]

Thanks Rolf!

I will be in Vienna from the 7 - 10 June. I intend to visit Scheer as well as Knize, Materna, Balint, St. Crispin's, Maftei... did you visit them, too? Who else can you recommend?

Where did you eat all the ice cream?

Regards,

le.gentleman

ps: can you provide us with some pictures of vienna's artisans?

[bengal-stripe]

Where did you eat all the ice cream?

I post more about shoes tomorrow.

Now to the ice-cream. I’ve never seen so many ice-cream parlours in my life as in Vienna. Not only in the centre of town but also in the outer districts. Walking down the street, every third person passing you, is eating ice-cream. (It was warm and sunny and that obviously helps.)

My personal favourite (which I discovered all by myself, without having searched the net) is Zanoni & Zanoni. Their “Topfen” (Ricotta) is out of this world:
http://www.zanoni.co.at/

When I just looked for the website, I came across some forum and quite a few people seem to share my taste:
http://forum.virtualtourist.com/discuss ... ssion.html

[andreyb]

Rolf,

Thank you for an excellent report on Sheer!

May I ask you to elaborate on other shops that, in your opinion, worth a visit in Vienna -- I'm speaking on not only clothing/shoes shops, but also on others?

Andrey

[BenedictSpinola]

Rolf,

I second Andrey's comments. I'll be in Vienna - I hope - in June/July.

Cheers,

Spinola

[RWS]

Thanks, Rolf, for essaying to work with Scheer. How disappointing the company of today sounds, and how different from a notable past! Sic transit gloria . . . .

[bengal-stripe]

May I ask you to elaborate on other shops that, in your opinion, worth a visit in Vienna -- I'm speaking on not only clothing/shoes shops, but also on others?

Four days in Vienna make me hardly an expert. But I've tried my best in the City section.

Maybe some of our Austrian members can contribute.

[andreyb]

Gentlemen,

May I ask for your suggestions on:

1.) ready-made shoes (in Austro-Hungarian school, in the same league as, say, Crockett & Jones)
2.) bespoke glovers

available in Vienna?

Also, any advice on city guides to use?

Andrey

P.S.: Sorry for resurrecting an year-old thread, but I though that Rolf made some excellent posts on Sheer and other places, which can serve as a starting point.

[Huzir]

Dear Andrey,

I have a pair of Ludwig Reiter, and a few years ago spent quite a lot of time looking at their models. They are arguably in the same league as Crockett & Jones, with fewer pretensions to elegance perhaps, but attractive nonetheless, and in construction and finish somewhere between the C&J Benchgrade and Hangrade lines.

I believe they offer an EG-like MTO service, or at least they used to.

[Richard3]

Stay clear of Ludwig Reiter. I own one pair and it`s most likely the worst made und most uncomfortable pair of all shoes I own.
After there was a hole in the sole after one(!) year of gentle wear they did repair it but that job was done so poorly that the sole began to come of after some more wearings. Now the shoes are 5 years old but still very stiff and uncomfortable.

[RWS]

. . . May I ask for your suggestions on:
1.) ready-made shoes (in Austro-Hungarian school, in the same league as, say, Crockett & Jones)
2.) bespoke glovers
available in Vienna? . . . .

I'd suggest Vass of Budapest, Andrey. I've a ready-made pair, and it's excellent; at least one shop in Vienna stocks some of Vass's work. Should you visit Vass in Budapest, you may find (for I'm told that there is) a glover next door or very nearby.

Robb

[Richard3]

I am going to Vienna this weekend for a fitting with my tailor at Jungmann & Neffe, which is a traditional store (1870s interior) that has some thousend fabrics and accessoires.

There are good shoemakers like maftei (www.maftei.at) and - a special tip - Elfie Riedel www.elfie-riedl.at.

[le.gentleman]

I am going to Vienna this weekend for a fitting with my tailor at Jungmann & Neffe, which is a traditional store (1870s interior) that has some thousend fabrics and accessoires.

There are good shoemakers like maftei (www.maftei.at) and - a special tip - Elfie Riedel www.elfie-riedl.at.

When I was at Jungman & Neffe in June last year, I was told by the staff, that they do not have in-house tailoring anymore... who is this tailor? Could you tell me a little more about the whole thing?

Servus

le.gentleman

[Collarmelton]

Sixteen years ago, a number of my "well-heeled" classmates at the University of Salzburg law school swore by an old shoemaker in Kitzbühel, who operated a little shop and did everything himself, by hand, in the finest medieval Meister tradition - though his shoe prices were firmly twentieth century, something like 14,000 Schilling per pair, I seem to recall. I don't know if this fellow is still around, but his shoes were a marvel of the cordwainer's art. His shop was a real treat too, with tools, materials and shoes in various stages of completion all methodically laid out. I was tempted to follow my classmates' lead, but in the end, I'm not fond of Central European shoe styles, to which he strictly adhered - he expressed his disapproval of my English-style Church's. I can't remember his name, and I wonder if anyone else knows who he was?