P: Okay, so the next brand up is Loake. In my case, I got a penny
loafer; this is in suede and you can see it's olive green.
A little bit of bolder color. R: A little more unusual. P: Right.
The model name is Eton and this is £240.
R: Yeah and I think that includes about like
20% VAT so in the past you could just subtract that and they
would ship it to the US but I noticed Loake disallowed European
stockists to ship them to Canada and the US
so if you're in Europe it's very easy to find those shoes and Loake has always
been known as a value brand, kind of English styling but now in the
US it's a lot harder to actually get the shoes and I don't know why they did
that, maybe they want to sell them directly
and have a markup in there but it's a little disappointing, I
thought. P: Right. I think so, too. R: Yeah so I actually got a pair of boots
and from their 1880s series which we'll cover in another video of
this style when it's all about boots and best boots under a certain budget.
And in the past, I've had other Loake shoes yeah, they're a
traditional brand or leather, it's calf leather, it's
it's good quality, it's not like the best leather in the world,
it's not crappy leather, it's somewhere in a medium segment..
but how do you like the suede? P: Well, I think it's the fact that this is a very
sort of traditional English styling helps
to offset the fact that I did choose to get a slightly bolder color.
Part of the reason I went for something that was different is because
as you'll see, as we continue to go through our selections here,
I ended up getting quite a few different brown
suede loafers; that's just what they offered us in a lot of cases
so to have something that was different and a little bit bolder,
I thought was advantageous and it's nice that again, it's offset by that more
traditional last shape. R: And I mean they have a lot of
classic last shapes, right? A lot of business
shoes that you can wear: brown, black shoes
and even the boots. I think their suedes are very nice, have a nice touch
kind of a short nap, they're not too soft but they're not
also not super stiff. I think their regular calf letters are maybe a little
stiffer. Workmanship, they're made in England.
As such, they are Goodyear welted which is like a standard over there
like they don't do blake really, England so
yeah, what do you think about the finishing? P: I thought that the
construction of these was very high quality all around. The
stitching was nice and even, I didn't see any loose threads or
anything, the way that the the sole was attached to the upper, I
thought was good, no you know -- obvious defects there,
very high-quality construction all, around, I thought.
R: good. P: As far as fit with these is concerned,
I was disappointed that they didn't fit me better out of the box for how nice
think they look. In addition to being loose on my feet overall, my heels do
tend to slip out of them. I do also have the same problem where they're
hitting the underside of my tibias actually on both feet. R: Okay,
interesting. Okay, so what would you say what size did
you get in these? P: this was size 8 UK and I did follow the sizing
guidelines on their website as to taking your typical size, which in
my case is an 8.5 US, then you would convert that to UK
sizing which I think is one lower, so that would be a 7.5
but they recommended that you size up a half size from what you would normally
get, ergo, I picked a size 8 UK but
that all said, they again did not fit me as well out of the boxes I hope
they would. R: Do you think half size smaller would be a better fit or would
it be too short, or what do you think? P: you know, I think probably having that
half size smaller would help. What I'm noticing in
getting a lot of these shoes and a lot of loafers in particular
is, loafers just by their nature because they cover less of your
foot, are harder to have an exact fit right away. R: well and the problem with the
loafer is you don't have the lacing system
to keep stuff in place. If you're an Ox or a Derby, you can just
tie it down, with a loafer the fit is more important because
if the tongue comes up further or the vamp is cut lower, there's even more
area exposed and if it doesn't have a tight heel fit,
you just slip in the back. So yeah loafers -- buying loafers unseen
is always harder and it's more risky. So always make sure that you can
return them if they don't fit and otherwise, it's a
pain. P: Right, absolutely. and that's definitely
something that I went through the learning process with
as we did this with these different retailers.
I think ultimately these will probably be salvageable for me, I could you know
make some modifications such as putting an adhesive pad on the tongue
here to move my foot back more to the heel of the shoe. Also, I will
need to put into all of these shoes, insoles. In my case,
they're mainly for perspiration and odor as
we've talked about in previous videos in particular our video on how to
deodorize shoes which you can find right here
that's something i have to do with all of my shoes is put those insoles in
there so that should probably help to snug up
that fit a little bit as well. R: In an ideal world though, people should always get
the right size shoe. P: Absolutely. R: and sometimes, if
you're unsure you can just buy two sizes; I've done that before and then just send
the one back that you don't like. I mean, with that being said, disregarding
the fit because that's a little harder,
what would be your rating? P: I gave these a three and a half,
keeping the fit in mind in my rating and also considering that comfort factor
that the height of the side of the shoe here was rubbing a little bit.
If we were to discount those fit
issues given how nice the construction is,
how nice I think the look is, these maybe could have gotten up to a four out of
five or maybe even higher.