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Bexley - affordable shoes with decent quality

What is Bexley?

Name might sound a bit unfamiliar for many - Bexley is a French footwear company, born in 1985 in Lyon, specialized in selling fine and affordable shoes for men - offering classical and fashionable products at a reasonable price as the main objectiveas they say at their website.

Most interesting about Bexley is definitely the pricing. All dress shoes are priced as 139 euros for the first pair and 89 euros for the second pair. For more casual shoes such as driving shoes, moccasins and sneakers the pricing is 79 euros for the first and 59 euros for the second pair. They’ve also got a full range of shoe care products, accessories, leather goods and even clothing - which all follow basically the same pattern. The more you buy - the cheaper the price.

Most of Bexley shoes are made in Europe and the leathers come mainly from the tannery of d'Annonay. The lasts and designs are made in house. Bexley does not have any retailers - only their own boutiques (10 in France and one in Brussels) and web shop. A decision that has probably been one of the biggest reason that has helped them to keep the price range as low as it is.

My experiences with Bexley

For me Bexley in fact was one of the first brands (together with Barker and Cheaney) I invested in when I started to build up my shoe rotation and moved from cheaply made Vagabond and such brands to “real leather shoes” with goodyear-welted construction. For a student at that time - the pricing method sounded interesting and gave a chance to get 2 pairs of shoes basically with a price of one pair from many other “semi-quality” makers such as Loake, Sanders, Markowski and others.

½ my first ever Bexley purchase - chocolate brown wholecuts for office use. After a few years of wear they are still holding up nicely.

Bexley has almost 100 different models available only in their “dress shoe” category (whics also covers boots and loaferes, all not suitable for formal wear though) and also many different lasts the shoes are built on. Basically (and roughly put) the lasts are divided into two categories - classic and italian style. I’m personally more fond of the classic shaped lasts which are a bit more rounded (some of them still pretty aggressive) whereas the some of the italian styled shoes can be a bit too “pointy shaped” and sleek for my taste.

Leathers used in the shoes come as said mostly from the tannery of d'Annonay in France. The first impression when taking the shoes out of the box has always been for me that the leather is pretty thick and I would recommend to use for example saphir renovator to soften it a bit. The thick leather on hand means (or at least it has done so in my pairs) that the leather don’t get creased or wrinkled easily and it also holds pretty good against dirt and muck - making it comfortable to use the shoes even during the rainy days.

Was looking a pair of jodhpur-boots and ended up with this Whitehall-pair featuring a last that is suitable to be worn not just with a suit and flannel trousers but that goes well with denim as well.

Getting a fine shine for the shoes just taken out of the box might be hard but after a while of use and couple rounds of nourishing and polishing one can even get a nice mirror shine on the shoes.

For more post regarding my bexley shoes - check here.

Can cheap be good?

A question that comes up pretty often is that “can cheap be good” as I know there are many looking to build their wardrobe and shoe rotation on a budget. 

My experience of Bexley shoes has been good so far. The pairs feature decent quality leather uppers, goodyear-welted / blake-welted construction, leather lining, leather insoles and most of my pairs leather outsoles as well. 139 euros for a pair of goodyear-welted shoes is a cheap price and there are only handful of brands that can compete with that. 

2/2 my first ever Bexley purchase - Enfield boots in chestnut. This has become a favorite for many on Finnish styleforums and I am not an exception. In terms of last, leather, rubber sole and overall quality this pair fairly competes with many much more expensive brands and models.

To conclude it shortly - Bexley offers good value for money and in case you are looking to buy a pair of boots or basic black oxfords for example it’s an option to take a deep look at. Just be sure to think through what kind of a shoe and for what kind of use you are looking for when picking out the model and last. 

In addition to the shoes, Bexley also offers shoe care products. And the one thing that actually beats all the others I’ve had so far - in terms of the price-quality ratio - is their shoe trees. 59 euros for 4 pairs of red cedar shoe trees is a deal I haven’t found a competitor yet. Of their clothing and fashion accessories I have no experience.

DLA x Bexley - combining casual footwear

Earlier in the summer I got an inquiry from Bexley if I was interested to check out some pairs from their selection. As I already had a pretty good understanding of their products (based on the pieces I had acquired earlier) I decided to take the offer and in addition to dress shoes take a look at the some pairs mainly from the casual range, driving shoes and loafers to be exact.

Later this week - starting today there will be 3 different posts about how to combine the pairs I chose - including Bahama driving loafers in sand suede featuring leather laces, Ferguson driver in chestnut leather and finally the Piccadilly tassel loafer in black.

• 9 years ago
• #menswear
• #shoes
• #bexley
• #france