Start with the flannel and glen plaid suits and expand from there.

Thank you all for the input -- I will check out the monkstrap if I can find it.

Much more interesting question that may be readily apparent, and some excellent answers.

Another point that has always been interesting has been the influence of the local culture , on the question.

For example, in the US, in many parts of the country, the wearing of brown shoes in a sophisticated business environment, would not be particularty popular.

However, in some areas, brown shoes are worn with a lot of colors, that would be considered inappropriate, elsewhere.

For example, in the Boston area, brown shoes are worn a great deal with navy blue, which would have many people agast in parts of the US, and the UK.

For reasons that I have never fully understood, the practice is much like wearing GTH trousers in other situations. "Hey, I know that brown shoes with navy blue is really inappropiate, but take it or leave it".

In addition to the excellent advice above, much might depend on the culture that exists in Toronto. My guesss is that it is a bit like the culture in the US in the midwest, and in the UK.

eg you and I are together on this point. www.aldenshoes.com is closing out burgandy 906 cap toes for $245. They just arrived.

If no one else wants these beauties, it's their loss. I spent enough time in the Hartford, Boston area, that I will always feel comfortable in brown, or burgandy.

When I did a lot of business with Lloyds of London, brown shoes would have been considered a major sartorial blunder. Just goes to show the vast difference in cultures.

Another point that has always interested me is the "Boston cracked shoe" style. Again, this goes to the upper strata of the financial community, that not only wears brown shoes with navy suits, but wears them to the point that the leather is cracked. This is supposed to indicate that the wearer has the GTH attitude about something that lesser mortals are concerned with. (For all I know they soaked them in buckets of cold salt water to achieve the look.)

When Adli Stevenson was the democratic nominee for President in @ 1958, Life magazine ran a photo of him with his feet propped up, displaying a large hole in one shoe. Many were agast. They didn't realize that this was to be expected in the top rungs of the society which Stevenson came from.

Again good post eg, that many will tend to dismiss as simplistic. It's not.

Last edited by Matt (2007-01-30 14:56:53)

Where to start?
In England we have class divides, regional divides, the whole lot.
The City of London has its rules as highlighted on another thread. The West-end of London has its own too.

Here's my take:

Old Brown or Cordo coloured shoes display far more class/wealth/taste/whatever.
Shiny, new, black shoes are the shoes of the rule-follower/the aspirant/the employee.

Yes, those in positions of trust & authority do wear black shoes over here, but they in turn are looked down upon by those in a position to be able to please themselves in this life. There's no end to the snob game once you start playing it!

In England you can be worth millions and have any kind of success you can imagine and still be sneered at much poorer yet 'posher' people who pretty much just idle their lives away. This is nothing to do with jealousy either, those poorer but posher people will genuinely feel that they are better than you. Most unfair!

'Posh' people who are themselves successful suffer a worse fate though - condemned forever as being vulgar and dull.

It's a minefield!

So in business in the City you can show your status in one way which will be understood in that setting, but if you pop over to someplace like Rules in Covent Garden for lunch then you'll be looked down on as some poor wage-slave in his business suit who's just popped out of his office for a bite to eat by the grey suit, brown shoe West-End boys who earn far less & work far less hard than you do in 'softer' industries. They'll feel superior to you because you are so obviously a businesman, a worker bee.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg!


Edit: Just to be clear - I hate all this. Hence my taste for clothes which put me outside the ugly, nasty, divisive English class system.

Last edited by Terry Lean (2007-01-31 06:00:50)

Not to derail this excellent thread, but most of what we see held up as Upper Class values on the MBs are in fact 19th century Middle Class values.
A pet theory of mine is that it's the Middle class who keep the whole class thing going now. Who else cares?
All the endless talk of 'being a gentleman' and 'what is the right thing to do?' has nothing to do with any upper class anywhere. These are only insecure middle-class obsessions. Ditto all the talk of 'vanishing ways of life' and 'values I inherited'.

If you want to be Upper Class look to the 18th century. Red blooded & 'Go-to-Hell' in every aspect. Aristocrats don't help out at the P.T.A. and support the local community. Why the Hell would they?

*Ahem*

Anyway... back to shoes -

t.

And here we are, back to shoes -

Brown suede is very gentlemanly. Just that right shade of tobacco brown with a good grey flannel suit. Very Chelsea, very West-End. Relaxed rule-breaking and all that.

Is this universal? The higher up the social scale you go 'getting it wrong' is getting it right. This is certainly the case in London & I suspect in NYC & Boston too from the comments above.

Peter York used to talk about 'Wasperanto' - the universal language of the U.C. I've always believed in it & think we may well have another example of it here. That 'GTH' attitude to dressing which shows that you are above all the 'dress for success' rule books.

Feel free to disagree.

T.

OK, ended up buying the Alden Dress Casual Plain Toe Blucher in the brown suede (they were on special) which involved a phone call last week to San Francisco of all places -- isn't the factory in Massachusetts? After some confusion with the local UPS depot, I picked them up this evening. The photo on the website had not prepared me for the rich darkness of the brown. I see now where it might not be so jarring to a casual observer expecting black, since the lack of shine from the suede makes them look even darker than they might look in calf.

Now, what should I wear them with first? I'm tempted to go straight out with the medium grey flannel suit, but I might chicken out and go grey flannel slacks with my blazer or other odd jacket.

Any suggestions?

LOL -- yeah, at -24C with windchill that's pretty good advice ...

Last edited by stylestudent (2007-02-05 22:13:06)