A pair of black leather shoes.

Shoes are important, but often neglected parts of an ensemble. Some say it is the first thing people usually see. While I do not know whether this statement is true, it is still an important aspect. One can be dressed in the finest suit yet look horrible when they wear terrible looking shoes.

For this part, I shall discuss leather shoes. For other types of shoes, well, I do not have much knowledge on them.

For men, we actually have only two colours for leather shoes to choose from if we are to be taken seriously. Black or brown. So, no funky colours like blue or green, although they can still be worn for fancy parties.

Black is the more formal colour of the two, and when in doubt, choose black. I believe it can be paired with almost any colour and so it is flexible.

A pair of brown leather shoes. Very nice.

Brown is less formal and less flexible, but in my opinion, looks classier. It adds a relaxed yet sharp appearance to the ensemble. Brown shoes are usually paired with navy or grey pants. Wearing brown shoes with a navy suit conveys a very English feel to it, actually.

And of course, brown pants can go with brown shoes, although people nowadays seldom wear brown pants.

Brown shoes are considered better looking because of the many shades and tones the brown leather can take, and can demonstrate the beautiful of the leather better because of this non uniformity.

Brown shoes, however, are generally not worn with black pants. It can be done, but black shoes serve better in this situation.

Being less formal, it shouldn't be worn in highly formal events.

Men's shoes do not just look all the same, and a design affects the formality of the shoes. From the two pictures, the black and brown shoes look rather different. For this, I shall touch on it in another entry.

However, because of the gradual relaxation of sartorial 'rules', the different level of formality are no longer strictly adhered to, and sometimes even thrown out the window altogether either in ignorance or in rebellion.

^ Return to Top ^

Return to Sartorial