alessandro gasparini Makes high-end loafers that are thin and light: Blakely tailored, but with materials comparable to the likes of Edward Green or John Lobb.
This is probably the most important thing to say first, as prices may seem high compared to some black-stitched loafers or Belgians: leather models are £545 and suede £525. This price is mainly due to the quality of materials and construction rather than being a big designer brand.
However, interestingly, Gasparini has a background in many brands, having been a shoe designer for many years, including Dunhill. Like some of the new costumes we’ve covered recently – august special, museum clothing – He’s coming at it with experience, and that’s why the product feels so complete rather than a work in progress.
The other thing to quickly establish is that I have a pair (the). black smooth leather Above) and have been wearing them again and again for the last three months. The fit is possibly the best in such low-vamp loafers, and they were instantly comfortable.
I took my regular shoe size – 9 UK, 43 EU – and apart from a little bit of bite at the joint of my big toe, which is always the case with me, they fit very well. I wore them constantly during Pitty’s (where they’re pictured here – with a cotton suit on top and my Whitcomb cotton jacket underneath) and they performed great.
My thin heel means I often have a lot of heel slippage, especially in something like the Alden, but here it was minimal. Of course, this is individual and depends on your foot, but hopefully the experience will be helpful in understanding what the shape is like.
Gasparini set out to design shoes for women as well as men, but as is often the case with these start-ups, he struggled to find shoes he liked.
“It was partly because of the size of my feet,” he says. “I’m a size 6 and very few people go that far. But at the same time, I especially love the styles of the 1980s, the Ralph Lauren styles with low necklines from then.”
I learned that the throat line, also called the top line by specific shoe makers – is the line around the ankle of the shoe and up the sides of the foot. It’s actually less so on Gasparini shoes, although I’d say it’s barely noticeable. The lower vamp – how far the front of the shoe extends up your foot – is more noticeable.
“It felt fresh to me, showing off more of the instep,” he says. “I wanted them to look vintage or old, not of any particular era, just fresh and elegant. So I started making them myself in factories I was working with, and people started asking me where they could buy them.”
I’ve been wearing a vintage pair of 1980s Ralph Lauren loafers ever since I found them on eBay a few years ago, which is a coincidence – it’s pictured above, and they were also in this article on wearing black shoes with jeans.
The style is a bit unusual and more feminine, although this is also subjective – a lot of ’80s suits that were seen as masculine were worn with slim, low-vamp Italian shoes.
And I find both my old Ralphs ones and these Gasparinis very wearable. In fact, probably more wearable than the Belgian loafers from Baudoin & Lange and others that have been so popular for the last 15 years. They feel more simple and classic.
The Gasparini loafer has few innovations B&L SaganBut I don’t find it any less comfortable. This is partly due to the quality of the materials – the full leather sock and lining feel really good even against bare skin – but there’s also a thin layer of padding on the insoles.
“Initially I made the shoes in Milan, because it was easier – I was flying from London to Como all the time, so I could stop and look at them,” Gasparini says. “But they made mostly women’s shoes there, and you could feel that they were very exquisite and very delicate.
He moved production to a smaller workshop in Marche, which makes more men’s shoes, and preferred it: “The attitude with women’s wear is always to keep things clean and perfect, but men’s is about the craft that makes things better with age, which I like.”
They retained some elements from those earlier designs. For example, suede loafers have a tumbled finish on the top line, so there are no visible seams. I like this as a description, especially because it’s so subtle.
Gasparini used a Blake-stitched sole to achieve the slimness he desired, but he also liked the Goodyear welt, and there would be future styles in that style. They also emphasized a hidden channel on the sole, so that the stitching is not visible, which makes it more sophisticated.
I got the smooth leather model in black because I know how much I wore those Ralph models My Easy Piccadilly Loafers In that color.
Gasparini loafers are a bit more comfortable than Edward Green (or any other English Goodyear-welted style) and easier to wear with warm-weather clothing, such as linen trousers – but I’d say the difference is really more of a style choice.
It used to be that such loafers were commonly referred to as Italian loafers, as many of these came from Italian manufacturers or brands – whereas English and American shoes were chunkier and chunkier. The division is less clear these days, but it’s still a good way to think about genre. It’s a question of which one you prefer, and you probably don’t need both. Although of course there’s no stopping you.
Alessandro Gasparini shoes only currently available his website; The only bulk is in Japan. The shoes fit true to size and Simon wears his regular size 9 UK.
The cotton suit shown at top is from Luca Museo and will be reviewed separately. The white cotton jacket is from Whitcombe & Shaftesbury and was covered in detail in two recent articles, Here And Here.
