This is cliche but i guess a lot of brothers has owned loake before. After having couple of meermin, i tot of giving loake a try. As a lot of ppl has recommend, loake 1880 range is the recommended brand to get when foyer into classic men shoe since they are still made in UK. After some research, decided on semi brogue adeleline adelaides burgundy for its versatile attribute to go with almost any colour of pant, even jean!
Luckily I managed to get it before they increased their price with 20% off old listed price. Initially impression when out of the box is that it is very light in weight as compared to most of the meermin classic line I have gotten.
Calf leather quality wise i can already see some small area of creasing at the side of the upper but it is quite small to be noticed. Some area at the side seem to be darker than rest of the area of the shoe as well.... but a quick polish with sahir burgundy creme should do the trick. To sum my opionion thing up, loake is more of commercial product line. Probably an effect of cost cutting measures that Loake has taken to keep selling their shoes at a reasonable price. Whereas Meermin classic line/Edetal/llyr are more of artisan shoe company that cater to aficionado shoe owner at afforable price (Brand listed are about the same price with 10% diff between them). 2nd part of year will be targeting Meermin LM and carmina....
Nice semi brogues!
280sgd all in is a pretty good price. May I ask where from? Coincidentally, I'm wearing my own burgundy Strands today.
Not to be anal but Strands is just a name for Allen Edmonds' version of the semi brogue oxford.
