Shoe care

[Nathan]

I don't want to state the obvious but since I had my shoes dragged out, I thought I'd share this thread. Many people on this forum are former military and are familiar with how to properly care for a pair of shoes. That said, some may not be as familiar. From a traditional perspective, it's not just important to wear appropriate shoes, it's important to keep them looking smart. Many of the shoes I wear with my kilt, I also wear with my trousers to the office. As we near the end of a long, cold Canadian winter, many pairs of my shoes were in need of some TLC.

Sometimes I wear dress shoes in the snow because I live close to work, across the street in fact. It would be smarter to wear boots or overshoes and change at work but I admit, I don't always want the hassle. The salt they use on the ground to keep us from slipping and killing ourselves, takes its toll on our shoes as well.

Tonight, I dragged out many of my dressier shoes to give them a going over. It's the first day of spring, so I thought I'd pretend winter was actually over. I thought I'd share a few tricks about how I keep my shoes looking as good as possible.

1) Protect the toe box - Cedar shoe trees are ideal, but they are very expensive. I have too many pairs of shoes to have shoe trees for all of them, so I rotate the shoe trees around where I think they are most needed. For the rest, I use either crumpled paper or plastic shopping bags to keep the toe box from curling too much. Plastic shoe trees are also an option.

After my shoe care session this evening...
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2) A damp cloth - Simple, right? Wipe the salt and mud off of your leather shoes frequently with a damp j-cloth or similar. Dampness doesn't harm the leather. This will strip some of the polish, however, so be prepared to shine them periodically.

Here are a few pairs of my black brogues in various styles. I take extra care of these because I wear them with the kilt a lot.

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3) Polish your shoes regularly - This is the most important thing. The buckle brogues are patent leather, so obviously I don't polish those, but the buckle loafers on the left were just spit shined this evening. These will look great after a few more coats and will be appropriate for very formal events. For shoes I wear more casually a brush shine, rather than a spit shine is usually adequate. If the shoe is suede or nubuck, get a wire brush for them and use it. It makes all the difference.

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4) Rotate if possible - It may seem like I have many pairs of shoes. It's true (this isn't all of them), I do but many of them were thrift store finds and I don't pass up a high quality, nearly new, well fitting pair of shoes. Having several pairs allows me to rotate them which helps avoid me wearing them out too soon. This means I'll get more years of wear out of them which is important, especially for the classic styles like the brogues and oxfords which aren't going out of style any time soon.

5) Spend the most money on your every day shoes - I don't actually care how much you pay, but the point here is about quality. The shoes you wear most often need to fit very well and be the best quality you can afford. This isn't really a shoe care tip but is a health care tip. If you want to avoid back pain etc... take heed.

Finally, as you can see many of my shoes are brogues or oxfords. These are a very traditional choice for wear with the kilt. They are a classic, timeless choice and I've always been a fan. I'd recommend you consider this style to wear with your kilt if you haven't yet. To my eye, these are for more pleasing to the eye than the ubiquitous broad square toed, elastic gusset, soft leather, rubber soled slip ons that are in so many shoe stores. You can't go wrong with leather shoes with leather soles in a classic style.

That's how I accessorize my kilt below the ankles and how I keep them looking as good as possible. How about you? What do you think?