COMPLETE GUIDE TO MALE DRESS SHOES Talking about shoes is a matter of style and history too. In the region where Armenia is today, more or less 5,000 years ago, at the same time they invented writing and the wheel, the first shoe was created by man. Since then our shoes have evolved a lot, thank you. But skipping a few millennia forward, until 2020, do you know what are the main models that a modern man should have in his collection and how to use them? To answer that and help you take the right steps towards more stylish days, we have made an absolutely complete guide to men's dress shoes. What are the different types, how did they arise and the most suitable occasions for each one. Look that:
OXFORD
Here's a classic that never goes out of style. What defines Oxford, mainly, are the shoelace holes that are in the shoe's own body. It is not known exactly where it had been invented. The most accepted hypotheses are Ireland or Scotland. But it is a fact that the model was popularized in England by students at the University of Oxford (hence its name) in the early 19th century.
There are several variations of Oxford - material, color, cut. But there is a wild model that every man needs in the closet: the basic black leather, perfect for wearing with a suit.
DERBY
At first glance, Derby is very similar to Oxford. And they really are. What is the subtle difference between the two? At the Derby, the shoelace holes are on a sewn flap. You could say that Derby literally changed the history of the world. It came about when a general of Prussia, during the Napoleonic Wars, thought his soldiers were losing agility in preparing for battles because of their closed boots. The solution he found? Create an open loop model, which even gave more comfort to those with long feet. His troops would later defeat, in union with the British, Napoleon at Waterloo. The boot was named after him: Blucher. And the short-barreled version of it, which in the following decades became popular with sportsmen and hunters, became the Derby. For its history, Derby is considered a little more casual than Oxford, especially when it is suede. But it also works with tailoring.
Read More
