Here we take a look at the Indian brand BLKBRD Shoemaker in my latest Unboxing Video.

BLKBRD Shoemaker has been making a name for itself with its ability to make a seamless wholecut oxford as a ‘ready-made’ product. Let’s not even get into the price of them which is another breathtaking feat that I explain in the video.

I have been wanting to see their shoes for some time now. They were kind enough to send over two pairs in two different lasts and styles to evaluate their quality and value for money. And I dare say, that it was quite impressive.

Grab your pairs here: https://www.blkbrdshoemaker.com/

Read the transcript below:

Hello. Hello. Hello, welcome back to another Shoe Snob Blog Unboxing video series, ‘one take wonders.’ It’s been a while. I’ve been busy, lots going on in my life. Lots of family business, a lot of work and travel, and family in the sense that I’m moving house. So that’s been taking up a lot of my spare time. And I am super excited about that, which actually happens tomorrow.

So, I wanted to try to sneak this in as I’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing them back just because there’s so much going on. And all of my free time has been taken up doing other things outside of unboxing videos, which I have a few stacked up now. So I’m gonna try to knock them all out next week besides the ones I’m doing today.

Let’s hope that we can catch up and also do some podcasts. Thanks for your patience and hopefully you enjoy a new video with a new brand and some new ideas and some all-around newness. So, here we are with a brand that I’ve been interested in for a long time now, curious to see what they’re like in person because you know, Instagram is not reality, but uh it gives you an idea of reality. So let’s check out the reality.

The brand question is Indian shoe company, BLKBRD Shoemaker. Now BLKBRD Shoemaker, in my opinion, has built this kind of buzz due to their pure seamless whole cut. Now, a seamless whole cut. I’m not even gonna lie. I don’t even know how you make one of those. I’ve seen it briefly online, and when I was studying shoemaking, that wasn’t even a thing. And so, um I’ve seen it done kind of here and there and they wrapped the leather over the last and somehow cut it. I don’t really know. It’s impressive. It’s cool. It’s incredibly difficult. That is coming from makers that know how to do it and just from what I know of shoemaking in general and whatnot. It has to be difficult as far as lasting goes to get that nice tight fit. So Indian shoemakers doing seamless whole cuts and you won’t even believe the price when I tell you, but I’ll save that for later. So you can stay curious.

They actually made me two pairs, one for the shoe snob and one for Mr. J FitzPatrick, aka Justin FitzPatrick aka me. Let’s start with the other one that’s not the seamless whole cut. Sorry,, I know you’re probably hoping for that, but I want to show two things here and I want to keep you interested till the end.

Alright. So first of all, nice sturdy black boxes. Well, a little bit of breakage here, but, you know, it’s very hard to make unbreakable boxes, and shipping companies these days don’t treat the packages all that well. So BLKBRD shoemakers hand welted shoes, handcrafted in India, nice packaging. It’s actually cleaner but I had to break the packaging in order to try the shoes in order to give you fit feedback. So, uh, a little gift here (shoehorn). Now, I don’t know if BLKBRD shoemaker, I don’t know if these horns come included in the price.

I tried to read about it but couldn’t find that information. To be honest with the prices the shoes are and with how much I know these things cost, I doubt it. Um, so don’t get your hopes up if you order a pair waiting for some horns, shoehorns, because those aren’t cheap. Well, those aren’t cheap, at least where I source them from. I don’t know if other places in the world sell them cheaper. All right. So the first pair, now this pair is called the Bemer X. They have X’s at the end of a lot of the names. I don’t actually know what the X stands for. So it’s just called the Bemer. And I presume it’s called the Bemer as it is similar to a classic Bemer model, which I believe they took inspiration from.

So your traditional cap-toe brogue, ummm what do you call a semi-brogue without that. I don’t even know, is it a quarter brogue if it doesn’t have the heel counter? Probably, but there’s brogueing everywhere else. So I’m gonna just call it a semi-brogue. So your classic semi-brogue cap toe in what I believe is stated as hatch grain which is supposed to kind of give the look of the Russian Reindeer grain that Bemer had and used back in the day. I’m not sure if they still have access to that. They say it’s limited quantities. The whole story around the sunken ship and whatnot.

So yes, this is called the Bemer. It comes in the, I believe it’s a Horween hatch grain. It just says hatch grain. I would have to double-check the site. I already can’t recall. I got this in my typical size, although it doesn’t say it here, pretty sure I got my typical UK 6.5. There are no markings actually on the shoe either. So I don’t know if standard models come like that or maybe they just made those specifically for me. But my typical UK 6.5 us 7.5 fit just fine, in my opinion. I wouldn’t have taken another size.

I do believe I have some bells and whistles that you wouldn’t get standard like these Triumph Toe taps that are actually branded, which is a nice little touch. I again, didn’t see add-ons for those on the product page, but they’re probably somewhere else on the site. Those definitely don’t come in the price for a standard ready-to-wear model. Now, so BLKBRD’s claim to fame is that they are hand welted. So right here it says BLKBRD hand welted. They got a fiddle back design here, which I believe is partly from the shank, to be honest, and then kind of built around that beveled waist. There is quite a substantial heel, just checking it all out, soft fudging on the welt.

Everything looks tip-top, to be honest, I don’t know the name of this last. It doesn’t actually tell me that, but I’m sure you can check that out from the reference on the site now. So I have my ideas here. Is this the pair that I checked out? They are fully lined sock liners. Let me just explain because I don’t think I’ve ever explained this before. The leather piece that you find on top of the insole is not the insole, it’s called a sock liner or a leather liner or whatever you want to call it. But not to be confused with the actual insole, which is a leather piece that is a natural color that looks like raw leather and sorry, I’m just checking for the actual telltale signs of hand welted. But it’s pretty dark and hard to see.

So I normally don’t like full sock liners. I always feel like putting on a full sock liner means you’re hiding something. I like to see that insole, I wanna see the markings, if it has markings, if it doesn’t have markings, I see faint markings, which should be an indicator that they are actually hand welted. The markings that you have normally come from the pulling of the thread and these are faint. And I can’t see very well, but they feel substantial, like a solid hand-welted shoe. Kind of a pretty good rubber piece on the heel there, which is very interesting. I’m sorry, I’m kind of all over the place. It’s been a long time since I’ve done unboxing video. Almost like I forgot how to do my own videos. I also just don’t want to ramble. So I’m trying to give you as much info as I can quickly because we gotta look at the other pair. The seamless pair I’m sure many of you are waiting for.

All right. So I do have some critiques, but I’m gonna wait until I check out the other pair before I get into that. So let’s just set these aside for now. Great shoe. Let me tell you the price, the price for this lovely hand-welted Oxford with hatch grain, which is good quality. It’s $250. I think that takes the cake for the lowest price hand welted shoe in the industry. $250. Imagine that.

(Opening the box of the other pair now) Oh, right. Done. Done. Done again. I had to break the packaging so I could try it. Another shoe horn, I’m just gonna destroy the packaging now as it doesn’t even matter. Did forgot to mention the nice black bags, branding very cohesive, good quality, nice presentation all around extra tissue paper, everything is double tissued, all very nice. Also to keep the shoes safe from all the rattling around they do during shipment.

The seamless whole cut: pretty impressive, pretty impressive when I tell you the price. So again, this is called the Constance and this is Chestnut Museum Calf. I believe this is from Zonta because it looks like the dark gold that Zonta does. But they call it chestnut. Noticing little details. I didn’t notice before. Sole is very similar. Fiddleback, BLKBRD hand welted, nice heel, toe taps etc. I do believe those are not included.

This pair is made on a different rounded last and also fits me well, in my standard size. With a really nice heel cup. I don’t know if that’s great for everybody because I have pretty narrow heels, but it really gripped the heel nicely like I felt nice and secure. I don’t know if I’m imagining this. I don’t think I am, but this one has a very slight pitch to it. These heels are definitely worked on. It’s not just the stack put on and has its shape. These are touched, these are trimmed and this looks like a nice leather heel stack and they even have, this will be hard to see in this video, but we’ll check it out up close details. They have a notch on the heel here, which is a nice telltale sign of handwork and it’s a, uh, overall high-quality shoe.

Now, I’m gonna tell you the price, sorry, I’m gonna tell you the price here, which is gonna knock your socks off, seamless whole cuts, pitched heels etc. These are actually very slightly beveled, barely beveled at all, which is interesting, but the notch on the heel, which is a handmade sign, a true shoemaker sign all for only $300. And if this is Museum Calf from Zonta which is expensive, that’s an insane price. Insane price. I don’t know how they do it. I have my thoughts of course. I know how they do it. It’s, it’s, it’s simple. They are facts. If leather is a fixed price across the world because tanneries, unless you’re buying millions of meters are giving you all the same price, it simply must be the cost of labor because shoes are labor x leather x profit margin.

So unless they’re really sacrificed their profit margin, but to be a surviving business, you have to be able to cut one of those. And I’m sure that labor is where the price helps in the sense that dictates the final price can be so low. Uh $300 hand welted, seamless whole cuts. Insane. Tried them on, last fits great, and comfortable. There is one thing I notice about Indian makers. And this was also the same thing with Bridlen. I don’t find their arches to be accurate. Their arches are very short. I feel the hump here on the heel which falls short. You know, I should have that copped feeling further forward. And so it’s funny because when I look at it it doesn’t look unbalanced, to be honest, but I do get that sensation that it’s not in the right place and I noticed it with all of them.

Sorry, I’m getting delivery (from UPS – knocking on my window door). Yeah. It’s hard to explain. I don’t know what they’re, what the arch is doing in that spot. Sorry, I keep getting interrupted with people, uh, coming to the shop even though technically I’m closed. And it wasn’t uncomfortable per se, granted I just tried them on, I didn’t walk all day, so I’d be curious to know about that. I just feel like the arches should be a little bit moved forward and I don’t have a particularly crazy long arch, most normal shoes fit just fine, but it’s something in there where I feel like a hump right here at the, at the very, like front of my heel as opposed to a little bit more forward with the arch lace.

I mean, I’ve been wanting to see them and I gotta say it’s impressive. I don’t, the only thing I really don’t like are these thick laces. I find them quite, I don’t wanna say unattractive, but a thinner lace would be more attractive. A little dressier. These are a little bit thick. And I think that one or two millimeters thinner would really be the icing on the cake for the shoe. Yeah. Impressive stuff. I mean, for $250 to $300 for hand welted, it’s hard to beat it.

And while it has it’s things, you know, there is some interesting shapes to this pattern, in my opinion, like, it’s got a really short facing, and a really long opening. I do think there could be some better balancing. But if you take a $250 shoe like this and you compare it across any other $250 shoe you’re going to find in your average department store or wherever this is blowing that out of the water. Because most shoes at $250 are probably cemented, cheap garbage, either made maybe in China, maybe in some of the cheaper factories in Italy.

And really, you’re just paying for ideas there and brand names, you know, let’s just say Nordstrom’s line, for example. Very basic. Blake cemented shoes. I don’t even know what they retail for anymore. It’s been years since I worked there. They were $250 when I was there. They’re probably $400 now and then they’re just, they’re gonna be nothing compared to a shoe like that. So it’s impressive. It’s impressive that they can be this good for such a low price. And when I say this again, I’m not comparing this to a brand where everything is flawless. I’m always comparing it against its price.

A $300 seamless whole cut. No brainer. You know, and a real snob who loves to go online and critique just because they have nothing better to do than that. You know, might say, well, look at all these ripples in the leather here from the lasting. But again, this is the hardest shoe to make this flawless. You’re gonna go spend seven times that amount somewhere else. You know, most makers that can even achieve a seamless whole cut aren’t charging less than $2000 for it. So, you know, again, manage your expectations, don’t buy this shoe and then complain that there’s wrinkles here because you only spend 300 bucks. This is not a $2000 shoe.

It’s an amazing $300 shoe and it feels good. The leather is good. The sole feels solid. You have all these details that you can achieve toe taps, pitch heels, you know, it’s, it’s hard to beat at that price. Definitely, definitely impressive stuff for 300 bucks. So, if you’ve been curious about this brand and you’ve been waiting to hear from somebody like me or somebody that you trust, I can now say that it’s a good price for what you’re getting. The people are nice. I’ve been back and forth with them. They’re very responsive. They’re very nice people.

I definitely think they’re gonna do well, especially if they continue to progress just like Bridlen has. And I’m curious to see what Indian shoemakers continue to bring to the shoe industry because like I’ve said a million times, it doesn’t matter what country you’re from. All that matters is the passion you have. And these people are hungry. People in the east are hungry to get involved in the shoemaking world and be competitive and something to contend with. And I dare say they are achieving that.

So, yeah, I’ll look forward to seeing what else they bring to the table. More lasts, more models, etc, maybe slightly more different arches or more fluid shapes. But yeah, great stuff, great stuff at these incredible prices. So definitely check them out at 300 bucks. You should definitely be grabbing a pair. They are pretty darn good. I dare say myself. Thank you as always for tuning in. Stay tuned for more. As I come back next week after having moved house, I can put that story behind me and now start getting back to doing my videos every wishing everybody a fantastic weekend. Thank you. As always take care. Bye bye.