4 classic oxfords

[Guest]

Okay gentlemen, start your engines:

Name four classic oxfords. No brogues.

[le.gentleman]

5 eyelet captoe oxford
5 eyelet plain oxford
5 eyelet wingtip oxford (without brouges not really a classic)

Just take a look at Vass' book they are all listed...

[BirdofSydney]

Four eyelet wholecut. Apparently they are oxfords for a technical reason I'm not quite sure of. I suppose they are essentially closed lacing.

This is going by the EG site, I think.

Best,

E

[Guest]

By the way, this is not a pop quiz, I am trying to understand shoe design and selection.

[TVD]

I take you define an Oxford as a close laced shoe.

It may help to approach this systematically: divide the last in three sections (front / toe, middle, heel). For each you can imagine several tratments.

Toe: wholecut, cap toe, wing tip plus any variety of shapes based on the basic (e.g. cap toe with a point towards the lacing, as found on some Italian shoes, or a sort of wing tip with a square aperture etc.)

Middle: full wingtip (EG Asquith, EG Chelsea), "half wingtip" - no idea what this is called properly - (EG Hythe), wholecut (EG Canterbury)

Heel: separate heel (EG Cadogan) or seem in the centre (EG Chelsea), (possibbly) wholecut (although this is very difficult to work with, I believe)

You may add any amount of brogueing at the seams or punched decoration in the center of the panels. For simplicity's sake I assume that stitching joins together two pieces of leather, rather than just decorate a single piece, but I have seen other otherwise.

Add different welts, soles and heel treatments, and the variety is countless. John Lobb Paris has just brought out some shoes with grosgrain edging, to add complexity...