****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I like the look of these shoes, and they are (mostly) holding up so far (more on that later). I walk all day with them and the comfort is fine (though the arch support could be better). My biggest gripe about these shoes is that as boat shoes, the shoelace is integrated into the exterior of the shoe. This was expected, but the problem is that the shoelace is also sewed in once it turns into the inner compartment of the shoe, and the shoe's inner lining covers this attachment. For one, this means that although the shoelace goes around the outside of the shoe, it cannot be pulled taught to tighten up the shoe, letting the back slip off the heel a tiny bit. This is annoying but still not that big of a problem. It also indicates, however, that the shoelace cannot easily be replaced like in a normal shoe.A week ago, I was walking and my left shoelace snapped in half. I wasn't doing anything more than walking slowly (though I do walk a lot in a day, I expected it to last at least a few months). I removed the shoelace and tried pulling out the pieces around the edge of the shoe so I could replace it. Lo and behold, this wasn't possible. I wound up having to cut the shoelace at one of the entrances into the shoe and just have the two different portions of shoelace in one shoe. This is quite an ugly fix to such a simple problem.Shoelaces snap when they're made of leather. It happens. Though it shouldn't happen OFTEN or EASILY, this occurrence should not make the shoe lose its entire appeal. It'd be so much better if the shoelace was just replaceable.Edited on April 24, 2015:Update on this same purchase. So the shoelace on the left shoe snapped on April 3, 2015 around 6PM coming home from work. This morning, April 24, 2015, the shoelace on the right shoe snapped, heading INTO work as I came up a flight of stairs. Luckily I was going to be in the office all day but yeah, these laces suck. For reference, I started using these on March 6, 2015. I avoided any sort of wet weather and on rainy or snowy days I wore my boots instead.I've cut the old laces out as much as possible (there's still some left that's glued on either sides of the arches and at the heel) and just strung in brown cloth shoelaces into the main eyelets. Aside from their shoddy shoelaces, the shoe leather and sole are great. (Shoe insert had to be replaced, but I'm a tall, heavy dude so that's normal wear and tear for me, not their fault.)
