oxford – ExIT Shoes

February 8, 2021March 23, 2023

Cordovan Oxfords

Cordovan full brogue oxfords made with Horween Color 8 cordovan uppers sewn with rust colored A&E Tex 70 thread. — Cordovan full brogue oxfords

These cordovan full brogue oxfords are made with Horween Color 8 cordovan uppers sewn with rust colored A&E Tex 70 thread. They are lined with undyed vegetable tanned calf. The soles are J.R. Rendenbach covered with Vibram cat’s paw. The leather heels are topped with Vibram heel caps. It’s all put together with welted construction using a hand dyed welt and beige hand sewing threads attaching the welt to the leather sole.

These oxfords feature a few interesting details worth pointing out.

Bottom view of shoe with rubber over the leather sole

Why rubber over leather? Leather is a good material for both soles and heels because it shapes to the last and foot. Good soling leather is tough and flexible, but it has its limitations. Leather does not insulate as well as rubber, which can mean cold feet on cold pavement. The rubber has better grip on a wider variety of surfaces and helps reduce the amount of water the sole is exposed to when the ground is wet. The rubber heel cap also grips a wide range of surfaces and is very hard-wearing. Both the sole cover and heel cap are easily replaced when worn. It makes for a good all-purpose, all-weather shoe. There’s no one shoe to rule them all and it’s nice to have the right shoe for the job if you can. You might choose to wear these instead of your leather-only soles in certain circumstances.

Blunt cut topline, rounded on the edge, dyed and burnished

Most, if not all, cordovan is top finished, not drum dyed. When cut, you can see the color only slightly penetrates the top surface. The undyed original color, (typically a light brown) is then visible. That cross section is usually not shown on the shoe upper, but is often hidden by skiving and folding the edges.

Cordovan can sometimes be difficult to fold, and the fact that it is finished flesh-side out makes skiving problematic for the integrity of the material. I have found the thickness of Horween’s cordovan to be highly variable – from 1.2mm to 2.2mm in the same piece! I used the thick parts of the material for the quarters, and rather than skive and fold, I rounded and finished the exposed cross section. With the right treatment, it appears as if it were skived and folded – which only actually occurs where the top of the outside counter captures the backs of the quarters. (See above.)

Shaving the flesh side of the cordovan shell

What even is “cordovan?” It’s *both* a special piece of horse leather *and* a color. (I’ve written about this before.) Horween actually calls this reddish brown color “Color 8.” Maybe this is because in the 1930 edition of “A Dictionary of Color” by Maerz and Paul, Cordovan is listed as a color on page 39, Plate 8, Color Sample H8.

Welt dyed Burgundy and Cordovan over Horween Color 8 cordovan leather

I don’t often dye the welts I use for welted construction, but I needed to figure out how to match the color when dying the blunt cut undyed top line. The “cordovan” colored dye was just brown, lacking even a hint of red. What matched most closely for me was using “burgundy” dye and then rubbing it with an uncolored oil and wax finish. This darkened the burgundy considerably and made the color I wanted.

Leaving aside for the moment all the problems with color correction, lighting and digital displays, you can still get a good idea of the color matching. It’s very difficult to distinguish the part of the topline that I dyed from the rest of the material below the stitching. The dyed and finished welt looks a bit more red because the undyed welt is much lighter in color than the undyed cordovan. I expect the welt to darken in time, but I think it’s a good match to start.

Cordovan is an interesting and unusual leather. The special attention required to the material thickness, skiving, folding and finishing make it an additional challenge to work with.

October 19, 2018October 19, 2018

T-Strap Nouveau Revisited

I don’t usually take clients with a deadline because so many things can happen to delay the making of the final shoes. I don’t feel comfortable putting work out there that I can’t feel proud of, so I’d rather be late than not meet my basic standards for the look and the quality. Nonetheless, I took this job for a client who had a special event because she knew exactly what she wanted and she said she wanted the shoes whether or not I made them in time for her event. I still put a lot of pressure on myself to get them done in time. I encountered an unprecedented number of technical difficulties. Shoemaking is a process of on-going problem solving, but to figure it all out in time was very difficult. I started over completely 3 times. In the end, this pair was a new speed record for me. From first meeting to final shoes in 2 months! (Don’t get any big ideas out there…)

This t-strap features a single seam on the upper which is done with a “feather stitch.” The design itself is a modification of a model I previously made from a design in a book I have called “Women’s Shoes in America, 1795-1930.” The client who requested this design collects embroidery. Since I first tried this stitch, I’ve wanted to find more ways to use this beautiful embroidery stitch on a structural seam. It seems that machine embroidery these days is almost always ornamental, and good luck finding an industrial machine that will do an structural embroidery stitch with three needle positions on leather!

I tested this out before going sewing on the final leather. When it came time, however, my Bernina would not sew this consistently at all. I tried small test pieces which would go ok, only to have it totally stall, error out and bind up when sewing on the uppers proper. When I first gave up on trying to make this embroidered seam happen, I sewed the whole thing on my straight-stich postbed, but I was really haunted by the fact that these were for an event dedicated to embroidery. (Maybe it would have been better if she had not told me the details of her event.)

In the end, I switched to a slightly lighter weight tumbled Italian leather that I’d never used before. It was the only leather that behaved halfway decently with the embroidered stitching. The tumbling made it wrinkly and kind of matte in appearance, which I did not like for this purpose, but this was before lasting. I knew it would smooth out after lasting, but honestly didn’t know exactly how it would come out. You can still see a bit of the tumbling effect, especially in the cut out sections which were not pulled so significantly.

Like my previous client, she was unable to wear a heel as high as the original design featured, so I made this low heel version just for her. The closure uses a button post (aka a “mini Sam Brown button”). There was no hole in the strap yet when I took this picture because punching the hole is really a one shot deal. Using a button, you can’t make adjustments like you would be able to with laces, or a buckle. To make a perfect fit, you have to check the stretch of the strap and mark it while the client is wearing the shoes.

The upper is Italian vegetable tanned calf, the liner is a combination of rose colored vegetable tanned goat and undyed vegetable tanned cow. The sole is Rendenbach with Vibram heel cap.

December 17, 2016

Reddish Brown Full Brogue

These oxfords were made for a young woman who wanted a no-compromise scholarly classic shoe for all seasons. No hothouse flower, she wanted all the benefits of a full thickness leather sole, but didn’t want to expose it to the elements without some protection. Covering the sole of the forefoot is some thin but tough Vibram composite material. It has good grip and will minimize absorption of water from the street when there’s rain on the pavement. She’s tough on shoes, so I secured the Vibram under the heel to protect it since she is as likely wear loose with the pedals of her bike as scrape it off stepping on a shovel.

There is very little welt extending beyond the profile of the shoe as seen from above and yet it is full welt sewn construction. One small benefit of sewing the welt to the outsole by hand is the ability to place the stitches very close to the upper. Most machines need more clearance, thus the welt tends to be a bit wider when it is actually sewn.

I’m calling this a full brogue even though there are more opportunities to brogue this upper — like along the quarters and the top line. I thought it was enough brogueing already.

May 18, 2015October 23, 2015

Blue Black Oxford

all the pieces blue black oxford

The upper is hand dyed top finished vegetable tanned Italian leather. Blue quarters and tongue, black toe caps, vamps, and backstraps. This pair was built using cement construction. These shoes are unlined with sewn in heel counters and toe boxes. Leather sole and heels, Virbram rubber heel cap. I used this pair for my “All the Pieces” infographic.

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013

Kingfisher Oxford

Kingfisher oxford Upper is blue and brown vegetable tanned leather with an iridescent finish. Welted construction, leather midsole and Vibram Gumlite sole. My client wanted a design reminiscent of the Eurasian Kingfisher, a bird with dominant blue coloring and accents of orange brown on the chest and tail. In addition to the kingfisher colors, this design features a sweeping wing of blue as the vamp approaches the back strap.