Goodyear Welted Derby

Details

An open-laced derby built on a Goodyear welt, which is the only method claim on this shelf that is the product itself. A welted shoe carries a strip of leather stitched through the upper and a rib on the underside of the insole. The outsole is then stitched to that strip and to nothing else. So the stitch that holds the sole never passes through the upper, and a cobbler can cut it, lift the whole sole away and stitch a new one to the same welt without touching the shoe above it. That is what resoleable means, and it is why the construction is named rather than the outcome. Now the part the trade leaves out. Goodyear welted covers two different shoes. In a hand-welted shoe the rib is cut from the insole leather itself, a raised holdfast, and it is as strong as the insole. In a machine Goodyear welted shoe the rib is a strip of gem canvas glued to a flat insole. This one is the second. It is what a welted shoe at this price is, and pretending otherwise would be the same lie as printing genuine leather on a split. What it means in practice is that the resole count is set by the gem canvas rather than by the leather: four or five resoles, after which a rewelt needs the insole rebuilt. A hand-welted shoe with a cut holdfast goes further and costs roughly three times this. We do not stock one yet. The upper is 1.6 mm full-grain calf and it is chrome tanned, because a dress upper has to stay supple and take a shine and vegetable-tanned calf will do neither. The insole and the full lining are vegetable tanned. That split is deliberate and both halves are printed.

• Goodyear welt, 360 degree, 9 stitches per inch in linen thread
• Gemmed insole, declared, so the honest resole count is four or five
• 1.6 mm full-grain calf upper, grain uncorrected, ISO 2589 and ISO 17131
• Chrome tanned upper: chromic oxide 3.8 to 4.2 percent by ISO 5398, which is what proves it
• Hexavalent chromium below 3 mg per kg by ISO 17075-1, tested on every lot
• Vegetable-tanned insole and full lining, no synthetic lining to trap sweat
• Cork filling between insole and outsole, beds down to your foot in a month
• Stacked leather heel with a rubber top piece you can replace on its own
• No corrected grain, no cemented sole, no bonded leather anywhere
• The chrome tannage is the honest trade: softer and better behaved from day one, and it will never take the deep vegetable patina a veg-tan shoe does.