re: Suggestions on Dress shoes

What did your husband say?

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As with anything made of leather - boots, bags, shoes, saddles - you get what you pay for. You can buy a pair of cheap shoes every year or you can buy a pair of high quality shoes that will last through several re-soles. In the long run, you'll save money (or at worst, break even) with the high quality shoes and you'll be wearing high quality shoes the whole time.

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“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.“

- Sam Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness

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Meermim shoes.

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I rarely wear black shoes, so never bothered to get another pair, but I have cap toes by Meermin and they are the most uncomfortable dress shoes I own. Allend Edmonds on sale isn't a bad buy. Overpriced for what they are at full price. But you can often get a pair for $200. I think I have 6 pairs of AE's and never paid full price.

At full price of $400, you can jump up a little to something like Carmina in the $500's and they are noticeably nicer. At least if you go down the dress shoe rabbit hole and understand what makes a dress shoe cost more, stitching, materials, etc.

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I'm really curious about Allen Edmonds because I'm usually so rough (unintentionally) on my shoes, that I'm considering just buying lower cost shoes like Florsheim from now on.

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I got into quality shoes after getting a pair of AE's on sale. Went on a business trip and putting them in my suitcase. Totally forget they were in there and dumped the clothes straight from the suitcase into the washing machine. They were wrecked. Looked up how to fix them and went down the rabbit hole on youtube of reviving old shoes. I still wear those shoes to this day. I've bought a few "factory seconds" from AE that had a droplet or something on them. Literally only required leather cleaner to buff it out and now I've got a "$400" pair of shoes for $120 (catching sales on top of factory 2nd). As far as really refined dress shoes, AE's are a bit chunky and rounded off. Not very fine stitching on the soles or the upper. But they are decent leather that can be kept up easily. Learn how to clean and polish a shoe and it's pretty hard to mess them up short of cutting into the leather.

In my case, I always manage to get deep scuffs/scratches completely encircling my shoes, from toe box to heel, that a local cobbler has stated is unable to be worked out.

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Ecco makes very comfortable and good quality dress shoes.

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This.

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What the hell are you doing in dress shoes that causes this?

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I stay pretty active at the office all day. Pretty sure I'm catching them on my chair while scooting back and forth, getting up and down, and so forth. I do it before I even notice I'm doing it.

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Absent a tux, i haven’t worn black shoes in a decade and i wear professional attire a fair amount

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I hardly ever do either, as things are more casual. Brown shoes with navy and grey is, of course, acceptable, but either with sleek back shoes and belt looks much more formal

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At this point, I feel like there is never really a point where black shoes/belt are needed over oxblood, etc. especially if they're shell.

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Yeah. I don’t even own black dress shoes, but I also don’t have to dress up a lot. If I’m going to a more “formal” event that doesn’t require a tux, I just wear oxblood shoes/belt with a navy suit.

At some point I’ll buy a tux and a pair of black shoes, but it’s just not needed at this point in my life.