Church's Appreciation Thread

[fatpauljackson]

To ease your mind, it's a relatively easy fix for any cobbler. The bad thing here is that they use cardboard for their heel stacks, which is a cost (and weight) cutting measure that does not please the Styleforum-police.

To turn it into somewhat positive, I see the sole-unit as separate from the overall quality. They are like a set of tyres on your car, it sucks if your brand new A-brand car has cheap tyres on them, but you can somewhat easily replace them and it doesn't reflect the overall quality.

I would definitely return these and have Church's pay for a new heel though, potentially even a full resole (but doubt they'll offer you that). The price is indeed ridiculous, these should be no more than 500-600 gbp and then still the heel stack should be full leather.

Thanks - it's already with Church's for repair. To be clear, I was never worried about being able to fix it... just shocked that it's not even stacked leather for the heel. And it's Blake-stiched, all for a 1200 GBP product. I'm going to try to just force through a refund, pretty sure it won't work, but definitely lesson learned.

I would disagree a bit with the overall quality comment. You wouldn't put cheap tires on a new luxry car right? Especially at the price point. You allude to it at the end. Appreciate your thoughts.

 

[shoefan57]

I don’t think they’re doing that to the men’s range but as others have said, leather fibre board, hollowed out heels are completely unacceptable at this price point. Loake 1880 use leather board heels and they feel harsh underfoot compared with a heel made of stacked real leather pieces.

 

[Ypuh]

Blake-stiched, all for a 1200 GBP product. I'm going to try to just force through a refund, pretty sure it won't work, but definitely lesson learned.

Blake stitched isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't own such pairs anymore, but consider it more of a design choice than a cost-cutting measure. Especially on women's shoes, Blake is lighter, more flexible and visually pleasing. Personally I prefer a nice bulky visible welt (e.g. Tricker's).

A refund will be difficult, they have no legal reason to and they can't really take in a worn shoe for resale. Consider it a lesson learned, and a sad one that is, because it may still be a top-quality shoe but $$$ ruins the customer experience that such brands should (and easily could) offer. A price rise can be explained (you pay for the name), but a drop in quality shouldn't, that's just greed.