Q & A: Episode 7 | Allen Edmonds

Transcription

Hi, I'm Kirby Allison and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. Thank you for all of your comments and questions that you guys have posted on our YouTube channel. After reading them all and answering as many as possible -- I've selected five that we're gonna feature in today's Q&A; video. The theme of today's Q&A; video is gonna be Allen Edmonds. Each of these individuals I've selected will receive a complimentary pair of our sovereign grid shoelaces as a token of our appreciation for your participation in our channel. Remember, if you have any questions or comments while you're watching one of our videos, please ask them in the comment section. I try to get back to as many of those questions as possible.

So, our first question today is from a Dan Wanous and his comment is on our Allen Edmonds $50 eBay challenge video. It reads after watching this video I gave it a try and bought four pair of Allen Edmonds for between $50 and $60 dollars each they were all as described in the description and with a little bit of love, I got a great collection of shoes for half the price of one pair of Allen Edmonds. Thanks for sharing this video! Dan, congratulations on your new shoe collection and I'm really thrilled that you really took our eBay challenge and tried it out yourself. You know the only thing better than beautiful shoes is beautiful shoes at a bargain price. One of the things that I was trying to illustrate in the $50 eBay challenge which I think you discovered is that if you invest in a quality pair of leather shoes and then use good polish to produce a nice shine you can make a pair of shoes that someone else abused look incredible. So, even if you're on a budget you can go on eBay and find a pair of worn Allen Edmonds and with a little bit of love and attention you can make those shoes look great and create a fantastic collection of your own shoes. It also illustrates how important proper shoe care is to the maintenance of a pair of shoes. You can have an absolutely incredible pair of Allen Edmonds shoes but if you neglect them and never polish them they're just not going to look great. So, with a little bit of time, attention, and Saphir shoe polish you can make a pair of shoes look better than new. As we show in our how to shine a new pair of shoes video. Even a brand new pair of shoes look better with a proper polish. Thank you Dan for your question and for accepting our $50 eBay challenge. As a token of my appreciation we're gonna send you four pairs of our new sovereign grade shoelaces for your Allen Edmonds.

Our second question is from Eduardo on our Allen Edmonds shoe polish color guide and his question reads I'm thinking to buy my first pair of Allen Edmonds the model would be the 5th Avenue -- the problem is the color, I'm looking for a brown shoe but as you said they're brown is more of a dark brown almost black my second option would be the chili but I can't tell if it is too reddish because I want a pair of brown shoes that'll be more versatile. What color do you recommend? Eduardo a great question but if you're really looking for a pair of brown shoes and you don't want black, which of course would be the most versatile, the second most versatile color in my opinion is going to be the dark brown. Rhe benefit of a dark brown pair of shoes is that you can wear it with navys, whereas a lighter brown pair of shoes you're gonna have a little bit more trouble properly pairing it with a nice navy suit. So, if you don't want black, my personal second choice would probably be the dark brown followed by the dark chili -- if you're looking for something that is gonna be strictly a more casual shoe. You can certainly make the dark chili a formal in certain occasions but it's just gonna be a slightly less versatile than that dark brown if you want a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes and are trying to figure out which color of Saphir shoe polish most closely matches your finish take a look at our Allen Edmonds shoe polish color guide video. Thanks Eduardo for your question. Good luck, I look forward to sending you a pair of our sovereign grade shoelaces that hopefully you can use on a new pair of Allen Edmonds.

Our third question today is from Michael and it's on our How to Remove Shoe Polish video -- it reads Hi Kirby have a question regarding a mirror shine. I followed all your instructions in your mirror shine video and the shine came out spectacular, however, when I wore the shoes the following day a horizontal crease appeared on the top of the toe cap maybe 2 centimeters from where the natural crease should occur why do you think this happened? This is my first pair of Allen Edmonds Park Avenues and I bought a size too long but the horizontal crease didn't appear until after I did the mirror shine and walked in them. I just thought this was kind of peculiar and you might know. Thanks, hi Michael a great question. Congratulations on your new pair of Allen Edmonds Park Avenues, beautiful shoes incredibly versatile if you purchased a pair of Allen Edmonds that are slightly large and then the crease could fall in front of the cap which traditionally is placed proportionate on the shoe to ensure that that flex or creasing occurs behind the cap across the vamp. Now without a high shine you might not notice this but whenever you place a high shine on a cap you're putting that layer of hard waxes and any type of creasing on that hard countered area of the cap even if it's just slide will cause those hard waxes to crack. So, I have three suggestions for you. You could reach out to Allen Edmonds to see if they would exchange that shoe for the next half size smaller, which hopefully will push that crease point back into the vamp where it's supposed to occur. Second, you could when you apply the mirror shine forward that point where you see the creasing occur on the cap or third you could just avoid the mirror shine altogether. Even looked a little bit of Pate De Luxe you can work up a beautiful shine, it's not gonna be a mirror shine but you're not gonna have to worry about any cracking of the hard waxes because if you're just applying one or two coats of the Saphir Medaille d'Or you or Pate De Luxe it's not a high enough concentration of hard waxes that you have to worry about cracking but since the cracking has occurred you're going to need to use the Saphir Reno'Mat to pull off those hard waxes across that crack and then you can use the Saphir Pommadier Cream Polish and a little bit of wax polish to repolish that area of the shoe and fade that mirror shine into the softer shine that is going to prevent any cracking from occurring and if you have any questions about how to remove shoe polish from a pair of shoes take a look at our how to remove shoe polish video where we show you how to use the Reno'Mat to do that exact thing. And Michael I hope this answered your question and gives you a few alternatives. I look forward to sending you a pair of our Sovereign Grade shoelaces to use on those Allen Edmonds and thanks for your question.

Our next question today is from rdd25 on our ultimate mirror shine video. His question reads, "I have three pairs of Allen Edmonds in different colors if I want to do this mirror shine on them do I need to purchase the mirror gloss in each color or can I use the neutral color that we sell for all of them to achieve the shine thanks." A great question I believe the mirror glosses are now available in up to five different colors but one of the important things to remember is that the pigment concentration that you're gonna have in a wax polish and especially the mirror glass wax polish is going to be much much more transparent than what you see in a cream polish if you're already using the Saphir Pommadier Cream Polish to polish your shoes which are going to offer that high concentration of pigments to resaturate the finish you can certainly use the neutral mirror glass on all of your shoes for the mirror shine process. Now, the benefit of purchasing the specific colors is that you know the pigment does offer a little bit of tinting to the mirror shine. So, if you use a neutral versus a black mirror gloss you're gonna see a very slight difference in the depth of the mirror shine itself. Now if you have five different pairs of shoes that are all different colors then absolutely you can use the neutral mirror gloss and all five of those but if you're really committed to the mirror shine and one it's just a beautiful mirror shine and all your shoes I also recommend experimenting with some of the pigmented colors also. One of the reasons we offer different colors in the mirror glass isn't only so that you can match it to the exact finish of your shoe but so that you can use contrasting colors and pigments in order to produce a patina in the mirror shine itself. Thank you for your question, good luck on the mirror shine, make sure you're using our high shine chamois -- it makes a tremendous difference in being able to produce a beautiful mirror shine and I look forward to sending you a pair of our Sovereign Grade shoelaces to use in your shoes. We recently produced a video on How to Antique Dress Shoes and if you haven't seen that take a look because I show in that video how you can use contrasting colors of a shoe polish to produce a beautiful antiquing finish on a pair of Allen Edmonds shoes.

Our last question today is from a Terry Henshaw and is on our how to use the Saphir Reno'Mat video. His question reads "does the Reno'Mat changed the color of the shoes, specifically Allen Edmonds?" The Saphir Reno'Mat is safe to use on even the highest quality leathers and it shouldn't remove the finish on any pair of fine shoes that are properly dyed. Now, when you use the Saphir Reno'Mat you're gonna see a little bit of pigment come off of the shoe which is totally normal and you're gonna see the shoe dull. Now the reason the shoe is going to dull is because you're pulling off all of those waxes from the leather and so it's just going to produce a dulling effect on the finish that is easily restored when you re-shine those shoes using the Saphir Medaille d'Or shoe polish. As long as your shoes are properly dyed using an alcohol-based leather dye the Reno'Mat isn't going to affect the original finish of the shoe. However, sometimes, you do see certain shoe manufacturers cutting corners by using a superficial spray-on leather dye that doesn't actually soak in permanently into the leather and the Reno'Mat can in fact affect that finish and pull it off of the shoe. So that's why we always recommend testing a hidden area of the shoe just to ensure that the Reno'Mat doesn't interact with the leather in any unintended ways. Thank you Terry for your question and I look forward to sending you a pair of our Sovereign Grade shoelaces to use on your Allen Edmonds. Today in this video I'm wearing a navy bespoke suit from Chris Despos with tabbed trousers and a two-button stance. I've got a yellow Drakes of London tie that I've had for quite some time. A white shirt, of course, one of my signatures I've got a Simonnot Godard linen pocket square with the beautiful subtle blue pinstripe in it. I'm wearing a pair of our Navy Sovereign Grade dress socks and of course my burgundy pigskin Baron de Rede bespoke loafers from George Cleverley. It's warming up here in Texas and this blue fresco suit is one of my favorite summertime suits because the fresco weave is an open weave that breathes quite nicely.

So thank you to everyone that asked questions in our Q&A; video today. I look forward to sending you pairs of our sovereign grade shoelaces and if you haven't taken an opportunity to ask a question or make a comment on our YouTube channel I invite you to do so I read all those questions and comments personally and really do enjoy getting back to as many of them as personally possible. I particularly enjoy our regular commenters because I really feel that we're getting to know each other. If you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs up and please subscribe to our youtube channel and turn on your notifications by clicking the bell to the right of the subscribe button so that you know whenever we release new videos and of course please visit HangerProject.com where we have the largest most comprehensive collection of luxury garment care and shoe care accessories in the world as well as many other incredible products for the well-dressed and while you're there subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new product launches, promotions, as well as, a weekly digest of all the videos we publish here on our YouTube channel. I'm Kirby Allison and I look forward to seeing you back here on our YouTube channel.