Florsheim Shoes

[cookie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/business/yourmoney/24shoe.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

 

[carter]

Fascinating article. It'll be interesting to see if the Florsheim brand can regain the cachet it once had.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

Great piece. I'd be willing to support them if they start producing decent shoes. It wasn't the horrible styling as it was the lousy construction that drove me away from the brand. Eventually, I would see the brand in low-end shoe departments of places like Value City.

 

[Tomasso]

if they start producing decent shoes.

Don't hold your breath. These are bottom line guys; they're not interested in quality.

 

[Undertow]

As far as I'm concerned, you reap what you sew - H. Florsheim was greedy and sold out. Thus, the company lived a short while with some decent sales before the curse ruined them altogether.

I had to shake my head when I read this line from Thomas, Sr., “We don’t think we’re Gucci, but our styling is much more contemporary now.”

This article is five years old, and I still can't say I recommend many of the Florsheim shoes in production today. They have some decent looking models (a few of which I own), but the craftsmanship correctly keeps them at their $130 price point. They are no better than J&M, Clarks, Cole Haan, etc., or in other words, they're mall shoes. [huh]

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Guess I'm stodgy. I bought Florsheim Wingtips last week lol

 

[LoveMyHats2]

The Florsheim kenmores are still fairly well made. However, there is always some older gunboats made by Florsheim floating around, some even NOS that I see alol the time on eBay.

I think the main problem with Florsheim is having them manufactured in India or some other country that lacks quality control of both materials and manufacturing.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Great piece. I'd be willing to support them if they start producing decent shoes. It wasn't the horrible styling as it was the lousy construction that drove me away from the brand. Eventually, I would see the brand in low-end shoe departments of places like Value City.

You are more than likely correct. If you look at some of the "newer" models of shoes Florsheim is making, they have "el cheapo" soles made of recycled pop bottles, junk suede leather uppers, and are about as useless as cardboard flip flops in a flood. Some of the newer model wingtips called, "laceless"....junk....

 

[bond]

I can say with first hand experience after visiting the Florsheim hdqrtrs. Here in Milwaukee to exchange a pair of Veblen wingtips that their quality control has to be pretty bad as I tried on at least 4 different pairs before getting one that fit ok. Not to mention that while I was in the show room my cust.service rep let me try on some other styles in same size and they each fit differently!
The workmanship is nothing like the quality of Allen Edmonds is but that's a different story .
In all fairness to the people at Florsheim they took back my slightly used shoes and gave me fresh ones at no cost. Something that AE will not do.

 

[1961MJS]

OMG, what is Duckie Brown? They're really branched out, they have wing tips (yea!!), Nubuck wing tips (ehhh), Old guy semi house shoes, and Duckie Browns. Glad my 20 year old pair still fit. I only wear them a few times a year now.

later

 

[Isshinryu101]

The Duckies are just as bad as the rest of the modern Florsheims! Probably WORSE considering the cost more than the standard Flor garbage. How can they go from this...

TO THIS...

http://www.florsheim.com/shop/style/12088-235.html

http://www.florsheim.com/shop/style/17066-221.html

in only 80 short years? SO SAD!

 

[Undertow]

...In all fairness to the people at Florsheim they took back my slightly used shoes and gave me fresh ones at no cost. Something that AE will not do.

Well...AE doesn't have to.

I hate to say it but you could put your used AE's on eBay and still make more money than two pairs of new Florsheims.

On the other hand, I purchased a new Veblen in bone a year ago and I'm happy with them. They're well made, look good, durable. They're not AE, or any of the fine UK products, but for $150 they're really not bad. I also have a pair of older Imperial wingtips which are fantastic - one of my favorite pairs of shoes.

Then I've had a couple pairs of...what do you call them? Modern Florsheims? Whatever they were, they were crap. The leather on one was like cheap vinyl and started flaking off everywhere at one point. The other pair were just garbage and wore out faster than I could wear them. [huh]

That's why AE doesn't replace shoes and Florsheim does. Just sayin'.

 

[Fifty150]

Growing up in Chinatown, we bought Florsheim shoes. Because there was a Florsheim store. No other shoe manufacturer had a shoe store in Chinatown. With the exception of Florsheim, we were not privileged with mainstream products and brands. Brooks Brothers was not opening a Chinatown store.

Our only other real option in those days was 中興公司 . Nothing was top notch, or the best. It was all that we had. Back when people only made $1 an hour, you were able to buy reasonably price, usable products for an hour's wage. In those days, most Chinese did not venture outside of Chinatown. It wasn't safe. Anti-Asian Hate Crimes. Not much has changed.

Florsheim is still around. Some of their stuff is reasonable for the price point. It's known that there are better shoes. Better shoes cost more money. These are not $500 shoes. These cost a quarter of what a better shoe cost. For the price of one pair of good shoes, you can buy 4. This is one of the better options in the price range, when you compare them to what you buy in a department store. Cole Haan, Johnston & Murphy, Clarks, Stacy Adams, Kenneth Cole........ Some people only want to spend a day's wages, not a week's wages, on a pair of shoes.

 

[Fifty150]

There's a coupon code which gives 25% off. A very reasonable price. Free Shipping

 

[Fifty150]

Two things to think about.

First is comfort. If the shoe fits, and doesn't hurt, then that's half the battle. No point to any shoe, if you can't wear it.

Second point is quality. That balances with price. A good shoe, by traditional standards, is a shoe made for rebuilding the traditional way. It's usually built with a better grade leather, a Goodyear welt, etc. Only important if you plan on owning those shoes beyond the service life of the sole.



The expensive shoes are always mentioned. Fine if you can pay $500 for shoes, and $300 to rebuild them. Yet, neighborhood cobblers resole less expensive shoes, and at a lower price.

Are you planning on owning those shoes for 5, 10, 20 years, or for the rest of your life? Or are you planning on buying new shoes once you wear out your old shoes? I buy shoes when I see something I like. I own too many pairs, and will never be shoeless. I own enough that I can go the rest of my life without buying another pair.

For some of us, budget dictates what we buy. We buy what we can afford. When I was a kid, cheap shoes hurt your feet. Today, very cheap shoes can be comfortable. My dirt cheap shoes rival my expensive shoes in comfort.


Any brand that you buy, just make sure that they feel good on your feet. I have Florsheim Foundry models. They feel good 9n my feet. But that doesn't mean it will feel good on your feet.

 

[Fifty150]

Check out what goes into a "resole" and what the costs are. In the case of Florsheim, it could cost more to restore the shoe than what you paid for the shoe.

Compare that to Allen Edmonds and Alden.

https://youtu.be/bUWX-6GYbBU?t=29

 

[handymike]

I love the old Florsheim Imperials, they conjure up images of American businessmen in the 50s bustling around New York in suits and fedoras… I have a vintage pair that I occasionally wear. I’ve seen images of shell cordovan ones still going strong 30-40 years later… I don’t think the new ones will last more than a few years, but the look is classic and iconic IMHO. If I could find them under $50, I’d probably pull the trigger on a pair.

 

[Ernest P Shackleton]

Fifty150 is bringing up a good point about resoles. If a $500 boot costs $100 to resole, that's a substantial perk, but if it costs $200-300 and a multi-month wait from the original maker, it changes things. I don't know about you, but if I spend $500+ on a pair of shoes, I'm not likely to hand them over to the local cobbler (if I can even find one anymore, let alone one I can trust). I'm sending them back to the original maker for the best chance of it being done perfectly. And with shipping costs what they are, I'm spending another $30 or more for shipping one way. Very quickly, I'm in a position to just buy another pair of shoes rather than fixing the ones I own. It's really a sad situation. Some of us don't want to just throw stuff away, but there we are. It's very frustrating, but it IS the situation. The wait times I'm hearing about lately are ridiculous. Wait times of a year or more, yet I receive endless email notifications about a growing number of products. That tells me they have little interest in servicing their products.

 

[Grayland]

I really like them. When I was growing up, working class men like my dad always wore Florsheim gunboats to church. We just thought of those as "church shoes". They were so well built that one pair would last decades wearing them once a week. I have several pairs I've bought off eBay. The orignal steel V-cleat is very slippery and I always have them resoled. Last time I had them resoled for $140 through B. Nelson in NYC. I bought a pair off Grailed that had been resoled with Dainite. The US-made ( non-shell Cordovan) versions are still found at very decent prices and are worth resoling IMO.

Last time I was home to see my dad, I wore a pair with some nice denim. He noticed tham right away and was pleased to know that people still wear them. They aren't a sleek sportscar; more like a 57 Chevy. Good enough for Don Draper; good enough for me.

 

[Rmccamey]

Just jumping into the conversation. I've always had good luck with resoles, even on dress shoes, at my local western boot repair shop. Here in Texas, there is a boot store in most towns across the state.

Fifty150 is bringing up a good point about resoles. If a $500 boot costs $100 to resole, that's a substantial perk, but if it costs $200-300 and a multi-month wait from the original maker, it changes things. I don't know about you, but if I spend $500+ on a pair of shoes, I'm not likely to hand them over to the local cobbler (if I can even find one anymore, let alone one I can trust). I'm sending them back to the original maker for the best chance of it being done perfectly. And with shipping costs what they are, I'm spending another $30 or more for shipping one way. Very quickly, I'm in a position to just buy another pair of shoes rather than fixing the ones I own. It's really a sad situation. Some of us don't want to just throw stuff away, but there we are. It's very frustrating, but it IS the situation. The wait times I'm hearing about lately are ridiculous. Wait times of a year or more, yet I receive endless email notifications about a growing number of products. That tells me they have little interest in servicing their products.