Welcome!
In this video, I'm going to show you how to lace Oxfords and Dress shoes properly.
One of the things that ruins the look of your Oxford shoes that I see over and over again
is improper lacing.
First of all, you need the right shoelaces.
You want thin laces such as these and not thick laces like this nylon ones.
These are way too thick they're going to look bad and they can look more like a sneaker
and not elegant men's dress shoe.
Second,you want the right length of shoelaces.
They should be about 31 inches or 80 centimeters.
The most formal laces you can get are thin, round shoelaces an alternative that is slightly
more casual but still formal enough to wear to the office is flat shoelaces.
Choose what you like, they're both fine it's just a slightly different look.
the look you want to go for in Oxfords is what I call, Bar lacing or Parallel lacing.
here'a a perfect example of what not to do with your Oxfords.
You have the crisscross lacing and it just doesn't really work with the silhouette of
the Oxford.
Historically, it's always been the bar lacing and lacing your Oxford that way shows everybody
that you don't know what you're doing.
Obviously when it comes to laces, it's not just about the thinness and the type of lace
but also at the color.
If you have a white collar office job, you want black laces with black shoes.
if you want to go to a cocktail party and mix things up a little bit, you can add grey
laces or maybe red laces.
The great thing about laces is that it's very quick to put them in, they're very inexpensive
and it's reversible so you can use any kind of lace with any kind of shoe to create a
different look every single time without breaking the bank.
Here's how you lace it, first, put in the shoelace into the bottom two holes and then
you pull it through.
Most Oxfords you buy have five rows of holes, if that's the case, it's important to have
one end slightly shorter than the other one.
I will explain why in a second.
If you have an even amount of holes like four rows or six rows you can keep the ends straight,
same length.
I start with the longer end and start lacing, on the same side put it in, go over to the
other side.Now with the bottom one on this side, I go through,
pull it through and go to other side.
You always switch every time you're done with one side you switch over to the other.
Pull through, lace it in and I keep going one over.
This is something you have to do when the number of rows is uneven, you cannot prevent
that.
When it's even, you won't have to go underneath which is why you're gonna have the same ends
but ideally, your ends should be the same length.
if you end up with slightly different ends in your shoes, what you do is you loosen the
longer end slightly and then loose the second one , loose the bottom one and pull through
the shorter end so they're both the right length.
once you're done with that, you tie your shoe.
Ideally, what you're going for is a look that is horizontal, just in line the bar lacing.
You don't want it to be slightly angled like this, you want it to be straight looking.
Sometime, people have issues with shoelaces coming undone, instead of doing a chunky double
knot this is what i do.
I start again, regular lacing, half knot, i create the loop and now I go once around,
twice around and put the other end through.
I adjust slightly and you can see this procedure is actually very similar to tying a bow tie.
that way, I get a slim double knot that holds everything really in place.
now you can see how just simple lacing can really make or break the look of your shoe.
if you're interested in getting high quality shoelaces such as these ones, round and flat
in 15 different colors, click here.
I hope you enjoyed this video, if you do stay tuned for our next video about how to lace
Derby shoes properly.
Thank you