At John Simons today I noticed what I thought was the Allen Edmonds Kenwood in grain. Then I picked it up and it was a Florsheim loafer in the same grain leather as the Yuma - all products made for the Italian market these days.
The loafer looks like a 1960s beefroll, wide and comfortable and at £139 a no-brainer. I would love it if Bass made a really nice Weejun again in scotch grain, but that’s another story. Meanwhile, there’s nothing wrong with the beefroll style, it harks back to at least the 1940s.
Purists may bemoan the made in India element of the Florsheim, but in the grain at least it works. The last is good, the handsewing good and it’s a pair of loafers for knocking about it, not Alden longwings. Unlike the brush off stiff plasticky leather of the competition at that price (namely Weejuns), these are like slippers at first try.
Thank God for the Italians (who’ve kept many a broken down vision-less company alive with their traditional models in time for them to be ‘rediscovered’ by the hipster crowd).
