The Kingsman Were WRONG! "Oxfords Not Brogues Explained
[0:00:00] [Music]
In the movie Kingsman, there's a particular scene where Harry Hart gives Eggsy three words
to live by, “Oxfords not brogues.” So, quick question, do you know the difference?
Yes? No? Maybe? Let's find out. All right. So, here we go shoe number one.
Look at this beautiful shoe. This thing looks great, but is it an Oxford or a brogue? Write
it down. Let's go to the next one. Now, onto shoe number two. Great looking piece
of footwear in a different color, but is it an Oxford? Brogue? Don't know or do you? Write
it down. And, let's pull up our final shoe in today's
quiz. Hmm, another great looking pair of shoes. What is it going to be, guys? Oxford? Brogue?
And now, the results. Two brogues, one Oxford, maybe two Oxfords, one brogue. The answer
is, gentlemen, two brogues and two Oxfords. What am I talking about? How can you have
four answers with three shoes? Gentlemen, I explain that in today's video.
So, here are the answers to the quiz. That first shoe was clearly an Oxford. That second
shoe was clearly a brogue. But, that third shoe was both an Oxford and a brogue. What
type of sorcery is this? Gentlemen, understand that an Oxford can be a brogue and a brogue
can be an Oxford. Then, what in the world is Harry Hart talking
about? Guys, to do that to explain what he meant I'm going to have to explain exactly
what is an Oxford and what exactly is a brogue. So, an Oxford by definition is a dress shoe
with a closed lacing system. It's traditionally free from ornamentation and overall is a very
simple shoe. Occasionally, you'll see a cap toe on this, but this shoe is meant to be
worn with black tie, with business formal clothing, with business casual clothing, and
by that actually I mean a sports jacket with odd trousers. Maybe a casual suit, but it
is not something that is made to ever be worn with jeans or something like that.
Now, Oxfords come in a wide variety of colors. Black is going to be the most common color
out there. And I think great for a first shoe a workhorse shoe. But, you're going to see
oxblood out there, you're going to see brown, you're going to see dark brown, you're going
to see lighter tans like this and all of them are Oxfords. This has been the go-to shoe
for the well-dressed man. So, what's great about this shoe is you can
buy it, you don't have to worry about it going out of style. It is something that has served
men for almost 200 years. So now, that we know what an Oxford is, what
is a brogue? A brogue is a shoe or a boot that uses leather ornamentation known as broguing.
Broguing is actually where you carve holes into the leather.
And, the history on this, we go back, again, a couple hundred years. This was a very casual
shoe. It was actually used to traverse marshes. Why? Because they had holes in them and guess
what? Whenever you went on the dry land, the water would come right out of the shoes, so
they had a very functional purpose. If you think about it, they were like an early
former Crocs. Yes, I know a bit jarring they're thinking about Crocs. But, understand this
is why brogues are considered casual because they have their foundation in sportswear.
Now, generally speaking there's four types of brogue shoes you're going to see out there.
Starting off with the most formal which is the semi brogue, then we're going to go to
half brogue which is a little bit more casual. Then, we're going to go to wingtips. These
are casual shoes. And then, we go to longwings which are going to be the most casual of all
brogue shoes. Now, throughout this video, you've seen some
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These are amazing shoes at a great price. So, now you know what an Oxford is, now you
know what a brogue is. But how can a brogue be in Oxford, how can an Oxford to be a brogue?
And what the hell was Harry Hart talking about when he said Oxfords not brogues?
[0:05:02] To be honest, I think the writers made a mistake.
They should have said Oxfords not derbies. What? What’s a derby? What am I talking
about? Let’s talk about derbies. A Derby is a more casual dress shoe with an open lacing
system. So, what's the difference between a closed
and open lacing system? Let me show you. So, on the upper part of a shoe of an Oxford,
we're going to see the back of the shoe, the quarter is going to go under the front part
of the shoe which is known as the vamp. This is going to give it a sleeker look and this
is a closed lacing system. Now, when we go over and we look at a derby
also known as a blucher, what we see right here is an open lacing system. And that is
where the back of the shoe actually is slapped on top of the front of the shoe. So, why then
are open lacing system more casual? Why our derbies why are bluchers more casual shoes?
It has to do with history and the design of the shoe. So, we go back to Field Marshal
Von Blücher. This guy discovered about 200 years ago that soldiers will go from one point
to another if they've got great footwear they will do it faster. So, he designed a boot
known as the blucher. They took the back corner of that shoe threw it on top of the vamp and
guess what? This was an ugly shoe, it was a fast manufactured shoe, but it was an effective
boot that his soldiers used in combat and it was named after him.
Compare that to, again, the closed lacing system. This took longer to manufacture and
that was much more elegant. Any well-dressed man who understands that difference knows
that those are casual shoes that those are more formal shoes and they can spot the difference.
So now, that you understand Oxfords, now that you understand derbies, and now that you understand
brogues, we can actually talk about this and it's going to make sense.
So, with Oxfords, those have a closed lacing system. Derby, open lacing system. Brogue,
doesn't refer at all to the lacing system. It simply refers to the ornamentation.
Now, the vast majority of Oxfords, they're not going to have much broguing. Why? Because
when you add broguing it makes the shoe less formal versus when we see over here with derbies,
we're going to see tons of broguing in general because it's just going to work with a more
casual shoe. That's not saying though that you can't have
Oxfords that have slight broguing on them. Maybe a medallion on the toe, these are great
looks. And, actually I think if you're going to own multiple pairs of shoes, then you know
why not, why not actually bring in a little bit of design. But, historically, we've seen
the broguing over on the blucher over on the derby side.
So, after all of this, if you're Eggsy and you have gotten that advice, Oxfords not brogues.
What is Harry Hart actually say? To me, it wasn't so much literally, but figuratively
what he was saying pay attention to the details because these small details knowing your history
and understanding things, that's actually what makes what a great secret agent or anyone
that's going to be successful in life. Paying attention to the situation, looking
at the details, knowing where you come from, and understanding where other people are coming
from, and why these rules exist. Because if you understand this, well, you can occasionally
break the rules when you understand that there's no reason for it or you can respect the rule
and you can work within the system when you understand why it's there.
Now, what video to watch next? How about how to dress like a Kingsman? Oh, yeah, one of
my favorite videos. I just love this one and if you follow the advice here, yeah, you're
going to be looking good. [0:08:26] End of audio