The London Lounge

We have often talked on the life of the bespoke suit in years/wearings. What could one expect from well crafted, bench made shoes before refurbishment? Presume good care, shoe trees, weekly rotation, etc. With refurbishment, seems like they would last perhaps, a lifetime.

rodes wrote:With refurbishment, seems like they would last perhaps, a lifetime.

I believe that we have had similar discussions before and I´m afraid I will be repeating myself.
For bench made shoes on a genle rotation, since they can be resoled many times, the heels replaced, and the insides recrafted, it would not be unreasonable to expect 30 years of service (their life´s span tends to equal the life of their leather uppers).
I would be tempted to say that good shoes can last forever, but I have witnessed that at a certain point, if the shoes are kept in use, the upper would start cracking and the coveted patina will turn into just an old worn shoe look.

I bought my first EG's around 1980 and they are still in use.

I rote my shoes so not claiming I wear them every day or every week but they are not museum pices they are worn and looked after.

I still have every pair of shoes I've bought over the last 30 of so years in use.

I was told by Church's that they only recommend resoling shoes once, as the reattachment of the sole damages the upper. Not sure if this applies generally though..

BB

Wasser50 wrote: I still have every pair of shoes I've bought over the last 30 of so years in use.

Same here, with a few exceptions.

bond_and_beyond wrote: I was told by Church's that they only recommend resoling shoes once, as the reattachment of the sole damages the upper.

This is nonsense. They prefer selling new shoes over repairing old ones, for sure

Cheers, David

The answer is "it depends".

It depends upon how often you wear them and how you care for them.

I have shoes that I have worn infrequently, and they are in prime condition.

The ones that I wear frequently age. E.g., cracked leather, seams requiring restitching, new linings, new heel cushions, etc. But, heck, the ones that I wore most often (and are most aged) are my most comfortable shoes.

My first bespoke pair of Cleverleys have been resoled at least once since they were made in 1997 or so. Sadly, I was less careful about conditioning and polishing in my youth, so the uppers are pretty cracked. The next pair I had made (1999/2000) is seeing some cracking but can get by. Again, I could have been more careful with those. Both pairs are black oxfords. Pretty much all others since then are in great shape, although the rotation is getting large enough that this is no longer saying very much.

The worst that's happened to any of them is some damage-- to yet another pair of black oxfords-- from salty slush in Boston and then London rain. Two bad days, which could have been mitigated by some meaningful conditioning and polishing beforehand. Cleverley tried to fix the damage and another cobbler locally did a little conditioning, but I still have to clean white stuff from time to time with vinegar and water. Even then, there is some scarring on the surface. Realistically, though, that pair should do fine for another 5 years or so, especially if I don't expect showroom cosmetic perfection. They were ordered with stouter calf and a thicker-than-single sole specifically for business schlepping. They are already close to 8 years old.

For future winter use, I now have a few black pairs of Vass with double soles that should keep the more expensive pairs out of harm's way. And I might try a pair of black shell oxfords as an alternative. The shoeshine crew at Brooks Brothers (or is it Saks?) likes to say that if good calf pairs last 10 years, shell can go for 20 or 30.

bond_and_beyond wrote:I was told by Church's that they only recommend resoling shoes once, as the reattachment of the sole damages the upper.

I believe that a good pair of shoes can take more than one resoling without problem, and as Davidhu says, I wouldn´t trust a salesman who might be just trying to sell new shoes.
However, I have been told a similar thing by a cobbler: that the endings of the leather upper -that curve under your foot and are stitched/nailed to the new sole- get damaged in the process of the resoling.

I have several pairs of Crockett and Jones shoes which have each been resoled three times, and which seem to have survived the ordeal pretty well.

It's all relative. Prince Charles gets 40 years of heavy use out of his Lobbs (patches optional).

Yes, Couch, but those shoes look like something Charlie Chaplin´s Tramp would wear.

As I said, it's all relative. How much wear you get depends on your tolerance for increasing 'patina.' HRH clearly has a higher threshold than you do. My point is that the answer to the OP's question is highly subjective.

In the world of watch collectors, for instance, the valorization of 'originality' results in some cases in a fetishizing of damage. In the world of art conservation, the debate between schools of thought over how visible restored areas of a painting (for example) should be is neither new nor settled. Many Italian institutions and practitioners have preferred no inpainting at all of lost sections to reintegrate the design, but instead use a flat tone that does not contrast with the surrounding painting, sometimes going so far as to hatch it with fine diagonal lines in a slightly different color. The idea is to leave no possible deception about what is original and what is restoration. There are many approaches in between that extreme and the other of attempting to reproduce the loss so exactly that only various kinds of imaging (infrared, x-ray flourescence, x-radiography, etc.) can betray the new work.

My own opinion is that HRH could have found a good reweaver to make the patch on his jacket less obvious and that perhaps the point at which shoe uppers need patches is a reasonable end point for their service life. But I honor him for valuing quality and for not proliferating objects needlessly. It seems to me both more environmentally responsible and more ethically disciplined than conspicuous accumulation or planned (fashion-driven) obsolescence. After all, it was Astaire who used to throw hats and jackets against the wall to knock the newness out of them; it's just a continuum of accelerated aging from that practice to stonewashing cloth and artificially patinating shoes. There is something pleasing about seeing "permanent fashion" taken to the point of prolonging the life of high-qality shoes whose wear was obviously acquired naturally and honestly, even if taken farther than necessary.

couch wrote:.... My point is that the answer to the OP's question is highly subjective.....

Very good points, Couch, and very well expressed.

I picked these up yesterday. Flush metal tips, hidden channel, leather/rubber heel. The cobbler who remembers how to resole shoes.

aston wrote:I have several pairs of Crockett and Jones shoes which have each been resoled three times, and which seem to have survived the ordeal pretty well.

At C&J they say that this can be done for a maximum of four times. When re-soling, they put the uppers back on the original last to stretch the leather and remove all the creases from wearing. This stretching is what reduces the number of times the operation can be carried out.

Now that is impressive resoling work. Did you take those back to the original manufacturer/shoemaker or was that work done by an independent cobbler?

If the latter, of course, inquiring minds want to know the identity . . . .