Suede shoes can be a very good choice

Q. When you write about shoes, you never mention suede shoes, which I have always seen as business appropriate, if not banker or boardroom ready. I have not had a pair in many years and am thinking of buying one or two to add a little excitement - and to have literally and figuratively a softer choice. What issues should I consider?

A. You are right that I do not generally mention a suede shoe when I list my “ideal shoe wardrobe,” primarily because it is definitely not an “everyman” shoe. It is for the man of style who wears it with tweeds and can carry off a Cary Grant, George Clooney, Justin Timberlake, Jonny Lee Miller look with confidence.

These days more and more manufacturers are making suede shoes, and lately men’s fashion magazines are featuring a lot more brown suede. They display it with gray and navy as well as with shades of brown. And not just with khaki pants and other weekend wear, but as another fashionable option with blazers, sport coats, and suits as well. The look is a great return, an English look. It suggests a knowledgeable dresser.

Suede shoes can be a very good choice. We are certainly not talking about an Elvis type blue suede shoe (although Robert Pattinson wore these a year ago), but rather the shoe that the Duke of Windsor brought in from the countryside and made famous as a sophisticated city shoe. The one that I am fond of is a soft shade of brown in a suede lace-up, not exactly a dress shoe and not exactly a sport shoe. It can go with one or two other dandyish touches, but not too many. And it is not just a winter shoe.

Suede shoes have always been popular in an ankle boot that used to be called a desert boot, now known as a chukka boot. But the new styles of suede shoes embrace a far wider range of shoes: They include a dressier model - a true shoe - ending below the ankle, and another handsome style of low lace-up that very nicely bridges the shoe-to sneaker category. These suede walking shoes, often with rubber soles and sometimes with white laces, are the perfect answer for the man who wants a super-comfortable casual shoe, but wants to look more grown up than guys who wear sneakers.

While suede is being sold in walking shoes, in boots, and in slip-ons, dressier lace-up suedes are an important new look with suits, wingtips and cap toes.

If you care about the conventions, the cap toe is a somewhat more traditional way to go. And now that a lot of corporate dressing is beginning to take on a somewhat more formal air, suede shoes can act as a segue, even going so far as to meld the less-dressy darker-shirt-with a-suit look with today’s evolving business way of dressing.You might even find yourself wearing a light-colored suede cap toe with your summer seersucker suit. Suede also works well with all manner of casual dressing: With denim (including white jeans), with separates, with sweaters, and maybe even with sleeker, not too-baggy summer shorts.

Wearing suede shoes is a new, subtle change in men’s fashion. You would be surprised to discover how many acceptable suede shoe options are out there: Everything from tan chukka boots and medium-brown tassel loafers, to colorful gray/blue driving shoes and classic white bucks,as well as dressy brown cap toes and wingtips. My longtime readers may recall that I have written that even though blues and grays are perfect colors for men’s suits, they send all the wrong messages in men’s shoes. This is still true for smooth leather dress shoes, but suede and its cousin “nubuck” are quite different. They change the rules and allow for much more leeway.

I should caution you, however, that if the company you work for never did embrace the shift to “business casual” and if those in authority are not impressed with “original” dressing, you might still be wise to exercise caution before choosing suede shoes for business wear. Every company and every office has its own dress culture, and it is generally not wise to flout the most accepted traditions.

As you suggest, suede shoes do need more care than the simplicity of polishing leather. Michael Caine says that John Wayne told him never to wear suede shoes because someone, recognizing him in a men’s room, may turn to say hello at a urinal and ruin them … not everyone’s concern, but a consideration!

Send men’s fashion queries to Male Call: Lois.Fenton@prodigy.net