Watches and Wardrobe Pt. 4 (Watches and Shoes)

Welcome back! For this edition of Watches and Wardrobe, I thought I would try something a little different. Although not quite to the extent of watches, shoes had been an obsession... I mean hobby of mine for a while. The craftmanship, materials, details, they were all fascinating to me. So in this edition, I wanted to try matching my watches with some of the shoes in my collection, to see how my choices in watches and shoes overlap. Especially so as many watch enthusiasts seem interested in cars and coffee as well (and pens), rarely shoes.

First up, an easy match, is Cle de Cartier paired with Church's Pamington. The Pamington is of the Oxford type shoes, the more formal shoe type that is more commonly encountered. The soles are attached to the upper via good year welt, which is a special type of stitching to join the sole and the upper. This allows for sturdier shoes, and it makes the soles replaceable (seviceable).

Like the Cle, the Pamington has a few details that make it a little short of making it true dress/formal - chiefly the cap toe finishing at the toe box. The outsole is also made of rubber, which gives the shoes a bit more everyday/sports feeling as compared to leather soles. I do prefer rubber soles because they make less noise and they're just more convenient for city walking (leather soles and puddles don't really mix).

Next is the Hamilton Spirit of Liberty paired with Allen Edmond's Denali. The Penny Loafer is a much more informal type of shoes, often associated with the Ivy kind of look. Some detas for the shoes include split toe finishing, welt construction, and somewhat more crude looking leather. The shoes are also brown, making then even more informal.

Next is the Orient Mako II and Adidas Advantages. If you follow any mens fashion personnel, they always recommend some clean white sneakers that work with pretty much anything in your wardrobe. Much like how watch enthusiats often recommend a good sports watch, a dive watch that works with pretty much everything. In any case, the Advantage are sleek looking sneakers with a glued construction. Glued shoes are often difficult to repair, but the advantage is they're often much more comfortable out of the box (welted shoes are often quite stiff). The touch of green on the tongue and heel is nice too (contrasted with a touch of red on the Mako). Both products are also on the more affordable end in terms of price.

Lastly I would like to pair my Seiko 5 SNXS79 with Aldo's Darovflex. The Chukkas are very simple boots, I like to think of them as the loafers of the boot world. With suede uppers, I think the shoes look classy enough but also sporty enough, just like the SNXS79. The shoes also are finished with glue, making them more affordable.

I do have one more pair of shoes I would like to touch upon, and they're the (infamous) Gucci Loafers. Like the Penny Loafers, the shoes are slip ons, less formal shoes. Their signature characteristic is the horse bits attached to the upper that makes the clink clank noises as one walks. Gucci is credited to have first made this type of design. The soles are attached by Blake stitch method, which allows for very flexible soles whilst also being replaceable. The downside is that it is comparatively less sturdy than welt stitching. In any case, I would like to match this with a future watch hopeful, the Rolex DJ 36 Wimbledon.

Do you have any watch/shoes combo you are particularly fond of? Do you have any favourite shoes you would like to share? Thank you all for reading and see you again soon!