Best Men’s Loafers: A Skeptic’s Guide to Weejuns vs Jay Butler

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What’s happening, folks? It’s Michael, and today, we’ll be looking at Carl Morowski’s worst enemy: Loafers! Tassels and all, baby!

Today, I have a sack full of the best men’s loafers. I don’t know all of your views on loafers, but generally, I never like them. But I have a rule in my life that I should never get stuck in my ways and just say I don’t like something—you should try everything unless it’s really bad.

So I have a bunch of loafers here, two of them being Weejuns, the Bass Weejuns, but the other two kind of show you why Weejuns aren’t a good deal. The quality difference relative to the price difference is absolutely insane, and a good friend of mine actually makes them, so that’s the agenda for today.

Also, if you don’t know who Carl Morowski is, he is the king of Heritage clothing on YouTube. He has an outright hate for loafers that I don’t know if it’s a joke or not.

Anyways, though, let’s get into these shoes.

 

Let’s Talk Leather, Baby

Okay, so the first thing we should probably talk about with these loafers is leather, because these Layton Lug Weejuns loafers are made of leather.

Anything below this price point—besides used, and I’m probably wrong, I don’t know a ton about loafers yet— isn’t leather; it’s just straight plastic, which doesn’t break in the same way. I have plastic Doc Martens that I was trying to see how they feel, and let me tell you, they feel horrible.

The Layton Lug Weejuns are made of leather, and you can see that when you look at the inside, you can see the other side of the leather. Much like Doc Martens, this is not good leather, and you may be thinking, “Well, but when I look on the outside, the leather is very smooth, and that’s beautiful.”

I get that, I understand that, but really, what you’re seeing is incredibly heavily corrected grain leather. This is really the lowest barrel or just very, very flawed leather that is then sanded down, and essentially plastic is put on the top so it looks very smooth, which is not good because what that means is as you walk and as you wear these in more, instead of the leather aging and looking beautiful, it will begin to crack.

The actual top layer will crack off, and then you’ll see very ugly sanded leather that’s actually under it. They will look closer to a worn-in sneaker, like a patent leather sneaker, than like a pair of your favorite beautiful aged loafers that you saved on Instagram.

Sizing: A Quick Note from Someone Who Got It Wrong

In terms of sizing, I am actually not a very good person to reference because I think in every single pair of loafers that I have right now, I think I’m a half size too big.

So I think you should size down a half size. I read across the internet that you should size down a half size. I think it’s because they don’t have laces and they will stretch and break into your feet a bit better.

Okay, we are almost at the point where I believe we will have enough information to then describe what is so much better about the other loafers that I have, but before we get there, we have to talk about how Weejuns are constructed.

So these are constructed by hand in El Salvador, which is obviously another plus—it’s very cool to have hand-constructed shoes at this price point. Then they’re constructed well; I don’t really think you’ll have an issue with the construction of these loafers.

I believe, and I could be wrong, they’re using a Blake stitch. So there’s Goodyear welt, which you’re probably very familiar with, where there’s actually a welt between the upper and the sole, but this is a Blake stitch so the leather upper is stitched directly to the sole.

And that may not sound as good if you know a lot about Goodyear welts, but it’s a different application. It’s not as water resistant because really you could walk in water and the stitch will get wet and go right up into your shoe, but it does allow you to make a way, way slimmer looking piece of footwear—way more flexible, a bit more supple feeling, and bendy.

The Price Tag Talk: $166 vs $199

The Layton Lug Weejuns are $166.

If you just go a little bit up in the price point, you really get a completely different product. It’s not easy when you’re reviewing Weejuns, you only know you have a much better deal than they are when the alternative is right next to them. When you put these two things side by side, things become much, much clearer.

Full disclosure: I have a pair of Jay Butler loafers. I will talk about them in a second, but I do know Mr. Jay Butler—that is not his actual name. He’s a very, very nice guy, and he sent me two pairs of loafers.

Also, off topic, Jay Butler has fantastic belts—he sent me a belt in a care package, and it’s the one I’ve been wearing every day for like six months. I don’t know, I like it. I really like Jay Butler’s products, so shout out to him.

Jay Butler vs Weejuns: The Face-Off

The Jay Butler loafers are $199, and the Layton Lug Weejuns were $166; both have free shipping. You can get a lot of, you know, discount codes or whatever for Weejuns.

There are some design differences that we’ll go over really quickly. First off is the shorter vamp, so the top part of the actual loafer you’ll notice is much, much shorter on Jay Butler’s, and the other signature thing with Jay Butler is that they feel much more like slippers than shoes.

Jay Butler’s loafers definitely appeal to a different market than these Weejuns. Weejuns are a bit more trendier, and Jay Butler’s are a bit more traditional.

When I wear the Weejuns, I feel like I clearly live in Brooklyn and am under 30 years old, although if you are 30 years old, you could still wear them.

The Leather Quality Smackdown

If we’re looking right away at leather quality, the difference is rather stunning. If I push my finger on the leather of Jay Butler loafers versus the Layton Lug Weejuns, you will see the Weejuns move like a fish—like a plastic fish—and Jay Butler creases, and you can see character come in where there are scuffs.

It also has a little bit of a lighter color. The inside is also fully leather lined, but the inside of the Weejuns are not lined with leather—it is just the leather itself from the outside, and the roughness of the leather kind of helps keep your back heel in place. Jay Butler adds a little rough leather on the back so that way your heels stay in place and you get the super soft lining.

To Resole or Not to Resole?

I wouldn’t really ever get Weejuns resoled, just because, frankly, I think by the time that I would want to resole them, the uppers would be kind of gross looking, so it wouldn’t really be worth the money when you could put it towards something else.

But I would get Jay Butler’s resoled because the leather upper is that much nicer, and they would start to have age to them, so they would look cooler, and I would want to wear them more. And if I wanted to go really crazy when I was going to get them resoled, I could get a lug sole added on to them, which would maybe be something fun to do.

The Wild Card: Those Fresh Larson Weejuns

I was excited to pick babies up—these are the loafers that my next-door neighbor Meg has, and these are where I was like, “Okay, I’ll do a video on the best men’s loafers as long as I can buy these.”

They are the Larson Weejun loafers and they are fresh to death! I’m not trying to change my style, but I just wanted to spice it up a little bit, and this is where I feel like Weejun shines.

I probably don’t want to get a really nice pair of  Larson Weejuns unless they become like a signature thing, but they’re just very loud, they’re rather obnoxious.

I have no idea how to incorporate them into an outfit, which is part of the fun.

Comparison Chart

 

Watch This Review

Final Thoughts: Still Figuring Out the Loafer Life

That’s about it. I don’t know what I think about loafers. I don’t know how any of you are going to react to me wearing loafers—hopefully overwhelmingly positive, but anyway, that’s about it. Thank you for reading!

This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.