morons in a hurry .. quite.

the funny thing is they want to make a handmade shoe, but then size it with only one width?! and also try and sell it online? .. who on earth is going to order a £1350 shoe online without wanting to try it one first? unless you already own exactly the same pair and want to double down on the investment with another pair? business logic makes you scratch your head.

fruity

Last edited by Oldfruit1 (2013-09-27 11:12:41)

Morons in a hurry. Instant gratification. Boasting rights. Great points guys!

4 grand for RTW?

More money than sense.

thanks xenon, fantastic explanation which is much appreciated and makes perfect sense.

when did the typical English shoe maker (C&J, J Lobb, Edward green et al) transition from the initial goodyear method, to using tape as reinforcement, to then just using solely tape as gemming? if this happened relatively recently it could be an issue which bites us in the ass down the line, people such as Justin aka shoesnob might be saying it's not an issue as these highly reputable companies all do it but they may well have built their reputations before they began eroding the quality of their product and therefore nobody really knows what effect the new technique has on life and wearability of their shoes in the longer term.

as a side i'd just like to say its fucking annoying when manafacturers do stuff like this to save money at the customers expense .. I for one wouldn't mind paying another 20% to not have a bit of old cloth holding my shoe soles on with glue ... this is what seems to happen time and time again in Britain, we have a great product but then dilute quality and drive prices higher which results in a devastating feedback loop which ends up destroying the whole fucking company. short sighted idiotic management.

fruity

Last edited by Oldfruit1 (2013-09-28 12:46:29)

Go for it shooey! You are the only guy to tell the truth about gemming failure on $1K+ shoes from so called master shoe makers.

But there is one way to avoid gemming failure...buy lotsa shoes so they rotate so little they never fail!

Re EGs I must say my EGs are my most comfortable shoes and even worn in handgrade C&Js do not compare IMHO.

Personally I see a better and simpler alternative that I believe has never been implemented: You replace the gemming with a good quality leather welt strip (maybe 1.5mm thick) and this gets sewn to the edge of the insole so you don't have glue and fabric failing in the presence of high humidity (for people who perspire a lot). The unsewn edge of this welt gets rotated 90* (just like the gemming does) and voila you have a quick holdfast with all mechanical fastening. Obviously not as good or refined as true hand carved holdfast but better than anything else.


That is interesting and I suspect a few shoe repairers know how to do this.

Last edited by meister (2013-09-29 03:59:22)

this is interesting, thanks for explaining this. knowledge is power and all that

the other thing which gets on my wick and is annoying from the get go is the lack of decent shoe linings put into shoes which are supposed to be made by 'master shoemakers'. specifically, the back of the heel cup is often left uncovered and raw underside of leather which rubs the back of your heel as you walk, also the insole is only covered by leather under the heel, the rest is left unlined, inevitably this piece of leather furls up and gets eaten away by heat and moisture. Normal John Lobb, Edward Green, JM Weston all do this .. and to me is cheap, especially after going to the trouble of making a whole shoe, not to finish the job properly. C&J handgrades to their credit have a full leather lining all around the heel cup, and the whole floor of the shoe is covered with a leather insole. why the fuck don't the rest of these high end shoe companies do this? I was in John Lobb looking at a £700 shoe and pointed this out to their head salesman, who told me that they thought they were 'finished very well'. WTF are these people thinking?

fruity

Last edited by Oldfruit1 (2013-09-29 06:30:52)

Last edited by 4F Hepcat (2013-09-29 08:56:19)