Alessandro Gasparini makes high-end loafers that are slim and light: Blake stitched, but with materials on a par with the likes of an Edward Green or John Lobb.
That’s probably the most important thing to say first, as the prices can seem high compared to some Blake-stitched loafers or Belgians: leather models are £545 and suede £525. That price is largely because of the quality of the materials and make, rather than being a big designer brand.
Interestingly though, Gasparini’s background is in brands, having been a shoe designer at various ones over the years, including Dunhill. Like a few new outfits we’ve covered recently – August Special, Museum Garments – he’s coming to this with experience, and that’s why the product feels so complete, rather than work in progress.
The other thing to establish early is that I have a pair (the black smooth leather above) and have been wearing them frequently over the past three months. The fit is probably the best I’ve had in a low-vamp loafer like this, and they were comfortable straight away.
I took my regular shoe size – 9 UK, 43 EU – and apart from a little biting on the joint of my big toe, which always happens with me, they fit very well. I wore them consistently during Pitti (where they are pictured here – with a cotton suit at top and my Whitcomb cotton jacket below) and they did very well.
My slim heel means I often get a lot of heel slippage, particularly in something like Alden, but here it was minimal. Of course, this is personal and depends on your foot, but hopefully the experience is helpful to get a sense of what the shape is like.
Gasparini worked designing women’s shoe lines as well as men’s, but as often happens with these start-ups, struggled to find shoes he wanted.
“Partly that was because of the size of my feet,” he says. “I’m a size 6 and few people go down that far. But also, I liked 1980s styles in particular, Ralph Lauren ones from back then with a low throat line.”
A throat line, I learned, is what bespoke shoemakers also call the top line – the top of the shoe around the ankle and the sides of the feet. This is indeed lower on Gasparini’s shoes, though I’d say it’s barely noticeable. The low vamp – how far the front of the shoe extends up your foot – is more noticeable.
“It felt fresh to me, showing more of the instep,” he says. “I didn’t want to make them look vintage or old, from a particular era, just fresh and elegant. So I started making them myself in the factories I was working with, and people started asking me where they could buy them.”
I’ve been wearing an old pair of 1980s Ralph Lauren loafers quite a lot since I found them on eBay a couple of years ago, which is a coincidence – that’s them pictured above, and they were also in this article on wearing black shoes with jeans.
The style is slightly unusual and more feminine, although that’s also subjective – a lot of those 80s suits that were seen as so masculine were worn with slim, low-vamped Italian shoes.
And I’ve found both my old Ralph 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 or so. They feel simpler and more classic.
The Gasparini loafer doesn’t have some of the innovations of the B&L Sagan, but I don’t find it any less comfortable. This is partly due to the quality of the materials – the full leather sock and lining is really nice even against bare skin – but there is also a thin layer of padding on the insole.
“Initially I made the shoes in Milan, because it was easy – I was flying home to Como from London all the time, so I could stop in and see them,” says Gasparini. “But they mostly made women’s shoes there, and you could feel they were too perfect and too delicate.
He moved the production to a small workshop in the Marche, which makes more men’s shoes, and preferred that: “The attitude with womenswear is just always to keep things clean and perfect, but the men’s is about craft that makes things look better with age, which I love.”
He did keep some of the elements from those first designs. For example, the suede loafers have a turned finish on the top line, so there’s no visible seam. I like that as a detail, particularly because it’s so subtle.
Gasparini used a Blake-stitched sole to get the slimness he wanted, but he likes a Goodyear welt as well, and there will be future styles in that style. He also insisted on a hidden channel on the sole, so the stitching isn’t visible, which makes it rather more refined.
I got the smooth-leather model in black because I know how much I wore those Ralph ones and my EG Piccadilly loafers in that colour.
Compared to Edward Green (or another English Goodyear-welted style) the Gasparini loafers are slightly more casual and easier to wear with warm weather pieces, like a linen trouser – but I’d say the difference is really more a style choice.
It used to be that loafers like this were referred to generically as Italian loafers, because so many came from Italian makers or brands – whereas English and American shoes were welted and chunkier. The division is less stark these days, but that’s still a good way to think of the style. It’s a question of which you prefer, and you probably don’t need both. Though of course there’s nothing stopping you.
Alessandro Gasparini shoes are only currently available on his website; the only wholesale is in Japan. The shoes fit true to size and Simon wears his regular size of 9 UK.
The cotton suit shown at top is from Luca Museo and will be reviewed separately. The white cotton jacket is from Whitcomb & Shaftesbury and was covered in detail recently on two articles, here and here.
