Patent Leather Men's Dress Shoes - When Can You Wear Patent Leather Footwear - Male Dress
Shoe Tips
Hi!
I'm Antonio Centeno, the founder of Real Men Real Style.
Today, we're going to be talking about patent leather dress shoes and when you can you wear
them.
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So without further ado, this is the question that came in, "Patent leather, I was wondering
if you could do a video on the subject of patent leather dress shoes.
I love the shiny gloss look and I could never seem to get this in my regular leather shoes
despite how much I polish.
I'm considering a pair of patent leather dress shoes, but since I'm worried it may be looked
upon as boyish or cheating similar to a clip-on tie, I wanted to ask your advice.
Also, is patent leather considered too formal to wear as an every day type of shoes type?
I think I have only seen them when I've rented a tuxedo.
Thanks a lot.
David in Kansas City."
Okay David, so yes, I think that they are too formal to wear as an every day shoe, so
let's go ahead and throw this out there.
I think there are three occasions in which you should be -- and I see patent leather
dress shoes being worn.
Exactly what is patent leather?
Patent leather is that leather that almost doesn’t look like leather.
It looks like a shiny plastic, glossy.
This is something where it's built in to the actual shoe and this is where it looks like
a mirror.
Now, where do I see this?
I see this in black tie, I see this in the military dress, and I see this in children's
shoes, so unless you're in one of those three descriptors, unless you are wearing black
tie or you're in a military uniform such as dress blues in the United States Marine Corps
in which we would actually wear that, or even with our alphas, and the other place is for
children.
Now, why do we see it in each of the areas?
Well, with black tie, it's pretty much one of the official shoes you can be wearing.
The other one is the opera pump.
I'm not going to get into what that is, but that's basically a slipper and you can go
look at it.
I talk about it on my website, but patent leather is something that you could wear and
it's not cheating.
It's just something that has gone with black tie and with formal wear for decades and decades.
It used to be that you actually wore your classic oxfords and you just polish those
and polish those and made them look great.
Because you can't get a similar shine, you need to know how to spit shine and get that
really nice gloss on there, but it's a lot of work, so some people sometimes go with
the patent leather.
Again, unless you're fitting one of those three descriptors, do not go with it.
Why do you see it in children's wear?
Well, I think it's basically -- and this is sort of a form of cheating.
It's when parents want to show that their children are dressed up.
I've got three kids, so I know this.
You do not want to be shining your kids' shoes.
Also, kids' shoes, they grow out of those things really fast, so you want something
you can put on their feet and it's going to look dressy.
It's going to have that shine and that’s why you see them in kids' dress shoes.
In the military, it actually predates formal wear, and I believe formal wear actually incorporated
that from the military as most of what you see in formal wear and men's style.
It has some type of origin coming out of the military.
So again, if it doesn’t fit one of those three areas, I would avoid wearing it.
It is sort of looked at as cheating because we can all tell that you didn’t shine that.
Everyone knows what they are.
So David, for your own personal style, if you're wanting to go out there and this is
what you like and you want to draw a little bit of attention to yourself and you're a
younger man, I don't know, who am I to stop you?
Go out there and do what you want, but that would be my advice.
All right.
If you enjoyed this, I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Otherwise, I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.