tldr; Best value entry to Goodyear welt footwear. Excellent for the price but infamous for brutal break-in period.
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Best praise vs top criticism for Meermin Mallorca Boot
“You’re getting a lot of good answers here. The vast majority would work. A couple thoughts: 1. Walmart does not sell a shoe that is Goodyear welted that I’m aware of. They’re nearly all rubber molded and lined in a foam/cotton lining. This is a cheap and disposable way of making a shoe, but also very comfortable. 2. In order for a Goodyear welted shoe (which is nearly every high end shoe) to feel comfortable, they need to fit well and be broken in by him to his foot. This is an easy, but sometimes mildly painful process. It won’t slip on and feel pillow soft, but it will feel good. 3. Find his size and make sure it’s accurate. If the new one doesn’t fit right, send it back and get the right one. Your new shoe won’t have a foam lining or anything to compensate for a poor fit like sneakers and Walmart shoes do. 4. Somebody mentioned the Allen Edmonds Park Avenue. It’s the most classic and popular high end dress shoe in America. It’s the shoe of US presidents and often recommended as the first high end shoe somebody should buy. They’re right. It’s a straight up classic. It’s $450 MSRP, but nearly always on sale. It’s worth $300, but not worth $450. If you can get it on sale, that’s the shoe. Also, others will know what he’s wearing. If there are other shoe aficionados at the office, they’ll know he’s wearing Park Avenues. 5. $350 puts you into the best tier for construction style and appearance. It’s below Crockett and Jones and some of the really high end stuff, but it gets you squarely into calf skin and goodyear welted territory. Especially for a first shoe, I wouldn’t spend more. 6. If the Park Avenues aren’t going to work, search Meermin, CNES, Bridlen, or other Allen Edmonds models. Also, Allen Edmonds Shoe Bank has factory seconds. In most cases it’s difficult to tell why it’s a factory second and can save you quite a bit of money. 7. If you decide the budget is just too much and the jump to a Goodyear welted calfskin shoe may be too much, Johnston and Murphy is a good transitional brand. They’re quite a bit below an Allen Edmonds in quality and many aren’t resoleable when they do wear out, but they’ll be more comfortable out of the box than the others. They’ll still be a step up from Walmart.”
“You cannot wear iron rangers. Based on the language your firm uses, they likely expect a navy blazer and wool odd trousers. since you just want to dress nicely for work I’ll spare you my rationale and cut to the point, but I’m happy to clarify. Navy jackets communicate business in a way that other odd jackets have trouble with and you won’t need as many of them in your rotation due to being inconspicuous. I recommend solid navy rather than a pattern for this reason. If you’re wearing a jacket every day (it sounds like you are) you should have 2-3. For trousers you should look into flannels and tropical wool ranging from light-medium grey or tan. Ensure these are high rise and sufficiently wide to drape cleanly over your shoe. Loafers and derbies/bluchers are all you should consider for this type of outfit. Black is fine and so is **dark** brown. The main takeaway is that your shoes should generally be darker than your trousers. For shirts I would get a bunch of classically cut OCBDs (read full cut ). These can be worn with a tie, open, and work with everything from jeans to suits (both in the real world and imo). Make sure your shirts are Cotton or linen, and not non-iron. For jackets and trousers I shop at O’Connells. Ben silver, J press, the Andover shop, the armoury, the anthology, Epaulet, and Samuelsohn are also all really good (good enough where you don’t need to worry about quality). Spier and Mackay is a good budget option but everything fits incredibly slim. You sound like a bigger guy so the whole Italian cut isnt going to work great with you. For shoes I’d recommend grant stone. Meermin is an okay budget option and Allen Edmonds is somewhere in the middle (on sale). For shirts I’d go with mercer, Kamakura, J press, O’Connells, and brooks brothers in that order. Final word of advice is to avoid Reddit, YouTube, and short-form content for advice on menswear. The vast majority will give you really bad advice. Forums are going to be a lot better for that kind of thing. I’ve attached a photo of what I like to wear to work (I work somewhere in between front and middle office in finance). It would look better with a tie but that’s not really the culture in my office. Weirdly enough ties seem to have evolved back into something you wear for self expression where a lack of tie signals conformity. https://preview.redd.it/1p5gk1acig4f1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9cf838a216e4cdac1e3527ebfac5505d4eaa8c97”
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575 Reddit opinions analyzed • Last updated 2/24/2026