The Battle of Budget vs Luxury: A Deep Dive into Shoe Quality

I have the Viberg 145 Oxfords in natural waxed flesh, retailing for a wild $740. These are considered by many to be the best silhouette of a shoe or boot of all time. The leather is also some of the rarest leather in the world.

Secondly, I have the Daeful Men’s Comfort Anti-Slip Dress Shoes Party Glossy Men’s Wedding Low Top Flats Leather Shoe Loafers Black that retail for $19. They’re also surprisingly made of leather, and they reek of stale cigarettes.

After I asked ChatGPT what that smell could possibly be, I got two answers: Number one, while these shoes were being made, maybe someone was smoking a cigarette. Two, the chemical most commonly associated with the stale cigarette-like smell in consumer products is formaldehyde.

Short-term exposure to formaldehyde can lead to eye, nose, and throat irritation as well as respiratory symptoms. Long-term exposure? Much worse. Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about because Walmart always has my back! We’ll dive a little deeper into cheap vs. expensive shoes today.

So what’s the difference between a $20 shoe from Walmart that, if it gets too close to my face, makes me cough and an $800 shoe from Viberg that, if it gets too close to my face, makes me want to put it on my feet?

Today, we will be talking about that—from leather quality, to how it’s made, to where it’s made, to different materials that you probably didn’t know about, to support for your feet, to all these crazy things.

At a Glance: The Shoe Lineup

The $19 Wonder: Analyzing Walmart’s Budget Loafer

What’s up, everyone? Michael here. Let’s compare cheap vs. expensive shoes. Starting off, of course, with Walmart, we have the Daeful Men’s Comfort Anti-Slip Dress Shoes Party Glossy Men’s Wedding Low Top Flats Leather Shoe Loafers Black.

This is the first-ever product on the Iron Snail that I think is actually bad for your health if you touch it or if you wear it.

Interestingly, the first thing about these shoes is that they are made of leather, or it should probably be said that they contain some form of leather. Usually, very cheap leather is leather with plastic sprayed over it. It’s called the top coat, finished leather, or something like that. It’s used to hide flaws in the leather.

I think this is something different because what you can also do is get really, really, really cheap, terrible, horrible quality leather, grind it all up, mash it together, and glue it, and you get technically leather.

I think essentially what they’re doing is using that incredibly cheap, thin piece of leather as a backing for the plastic. So it’s not leather with plastic on it. It’s reversed—it’s plastic with some leather on it. And then there is also an insert on the shoe, which is great because they could cheap out with the inserts and not give you cushioning and have a very rock-hard shoe.

It’s essentially a piece of paper that you can rip very easily, but it is an insert. I translated the text on it into English, and it says “fashion business casual” and then “business.”

The Secret of Budget Pricing

But here is how they get them so cheap: Almost the easiest one to start with is the country of origin. These shoes are made in China, but also they are not shipped to the US to be sold in different places—they are shipped directly from China.

So when I ordered these shoes, I didn’t really get a confirmation or tracking number, and three months later, the postman just threw them at my door and walked away, and I was like, “Oh great, the shoes are here!”

The other thing that they do is that these shoes are white labeled, so they’re not fulfilled by Walmart, they’re fulfilled by whoever made them in China. But Walmart is not the only place that carries them—they can be carried at a million other stores and a million different locations for cheap, cheap, cheap.

So, instead of selling a million at Walmart and getting the price that low, they could sell 20 million around the world to all these different brands, change tiny little details for each brand, and bring that cost lower and lower and lower and lower until it’s practically nothing.

First off, these shoes come with the California Prop 65 warning, but also you’re probably familiar with off-gassing to the point where you don’t even think about it. If you buy something made of plastic, when you open it, you expect it to smell a little weird, and then that smell goes away.

It’s all good. I got these shoes, opened the bag, and the smell first off was stronger than anything I had ever smelled before. You could smell it in my entire apartment when I opened the bag. So I let them air out outside for a few days, and I let them air out in my apartment after that for a few weeks, and they still smell almost just as bad.

These are made to be worn for a night or a week and then disintegrate. They’re made if you forget shoes before a wedding or something like that. But thrift shops are a great deal, so do not get these shoes, please. They are very bad.

Moving Up: The Adidas Gazelles

You’re probably familiar with these next shoes—these are the Adidas Gazelles. They are five to six times more expensive than the loafers, and you notice it right away. There is a definite hallmark of Vietnamese manufacturing if you look at the lip on the side…I’m just kidding! Materials are just immediately vastly better.

We’re actually using real leather. We’re using suede, so we have leather. We split it in half, and we have actionable suede, not a little thin piece of glued-together board. We also have actual cushioning; the outsole is a softer rubber, and there is an insert that is not a piece of paper.

There is actual quality control, so Adidas will make sure that the shoe is good, which is also very important, and you also kind of have to pay for Adidas.

So you have to pay for the marketing, you have to pay for the storage, you have to pay for the US customer service—everything like that does get wrapped up into the cost, but in the end, you get a much better product.

Mid-Range Excellence: Astorflex Dartflex Loafers

This is where things get interesting. We’re talking about the Astorflex Dartflex loafers, which increase quality, change construction methods, and go back to an older-world-looking shoe. These are great quality loafers on the more affordable end, but there are still some interesting facts about them.

Number one, it’s completely naked leather, or it could be considered completely naked leather because even Chromexcel leather, which is a very famous leather, has some slight corrections on top of it.

Either way, leather comes in grades, and this is not the highest grade because if you look at the leather, you can still see some scuffs, some marks, and some wrinkles on the leather—it’s not a totally smooth texture. That’s not going to hurt the durability of the leather or anything like that, but not the top of the top of the top, which we’ll get into later.

It’s also a rather thin leather, which is not a big deal—it will break in quickly and be comfy, especially for this price point. My favorite fun fact about these loafers is that their outsole is made of buffalo, while the rest of the loafer is made of cowhide.

I think buffalo is cheaper than cowhide, but it’s still very thick and strong, so putting that on the outsole is a genius way to cut costs a little bit.

These loafers are also made in Italy; they have a leather lining, and they are not just cemented construction. You’ll see that there is actual stitching between the vamp, the insole, and the midsole.

You’ll also notice that we now have a removable insert that is made of three pieces: two of undyed natural leather and then just a regular-looking foam insert.

American Craftsmanship: Allen Edmonds Leeds Plain Toe Bluchers

Okay, next up is the Allen Edmonds Leeds Plain Toe Bluchers. These are possibly my favorite shoes on the entire list, and no, you don’t have to spend $395 to get a Goodyear welted pair of dress shoes. They’re beefy compared to everything else that we’ve seen.

These are almost double the weight of the Astorflex Dartflex loafers. You notice that the leather is way thicker. The lining is basically as thick as the Astorflex. These are also made in the United States of America, which increases the price.

The entire upper of the shoe is a beautiful calf leather, and we also have leather on the bottom, but if you look, you will also see stitching because these are Goodyear welted, AKA bench welted, AKA recraftable, AKA resoleable.

That means when these shoes are worn down, and they look like they’re at the end of their lives, you can just rip the bottom off and put a new bottom on. It’s good to go.

The way Goodyear welting works is that obviously, we have the leather vamp that bends on there, but we have a little lip, which is the welt of the shoe, and with that little lip, there is a gap between the midsole and the vamp that is then filled with cork.

And that is why a lot of people say Goodyear welted shoes or fancier leather shoes will mold to your feet over time, because you’re compressing cork, you’re compressing leather, you’re moving leather, you’re breaking it in in certain areas, and that is also great for long-term comfort.

Vastly upgraded materials, more materials, a very complex way to make a shoe when compared to something like the Daeful men’s loafer or even the Astorflexes. We’re increasing complications, the location of manufacturing quality, and everything else.

The Final Boss: Viberg 145 Oxfords

And then we get to the beast. If you go on Reddit r/goodyearwelt and you say, “Hey, why do Vibergs cost so much money?” you may accidentally start real-life World War III.

To many people, a Viberg is one of the most beautiful boots that you could ever hope to get. This is essentially a Viberg boot with the top chopped off—this is the Oxford 145.

It’s essentially a double stitch-down logger boot, which we’ll get into in a second, but slim and sleek.

It’s not wide and bulbous, which a lot of those boots were because the main purpose was to fit a lot of people, but this is more fashion-oriented while still being incredibly tough and having a lot of cool features.

Also, compared to all the other brands that we talked about today, it is a very, very small company.

Things aren’t being pumped out, they sell out immediately, they have a cult-like following, people always freak out at the new releases—there’s a lot of hype around this very small boot company, and everything is made in Canada.

This is my first pair of Vibergs. I was very excited to get it. I actually made a film with them when I went to Amsterdam.

The Viberg Difference: Construction and Materials

The first thing we’ll look at with these is the beastly construction of them.

These are 10 ounces heavier than the Allen Edmonds. You’ll see how much thicker the heel is and how much thicker the outsole is. Obviously, we have leather and rubber here.

Speaking of leather, these also smell very nice, but Viberg uses some of the best of the best leathers from the best of the best leather manufacturers, Horween being a huge one. They use Chromexcel from them, they use shell cordovan, but they also use very weird leather.

Just to name a few: kangaroo, kudu, I think one of them was reindeer—all very exotic leathers that you don’t see in a ton of boots. And they don’t make a lot of those boots, so they’re not ordering a lot of the leather. There probably isn’t a lot of that leather to order, so the price keeps going up.

They also use a construction called stitch-down construction with a double stitch. That is not Goodyear welt construction; it is different. Instead of folding the vamp down and then putting the welt on, you fold the vamp out and stitch it down, and this is so you can keep moisture and water and other things like that out even more.

And the double line of stitching—a fun fact I just learned today—Viberg was really the one to bring that wave to mass appeal. Hipsters getting coffee all of a sudden and want a double stitch-down constructed boot that costs over $800.

Also, I think they just look dangerously close to elf shoes, which I like. I like that a lot. What you’re looking at right now is a natural waxed flesh, which is very cool. This is actually a rough out, so it should look fluffy, but there’s so much wax holding that rough out down that it looks almost like a smooth leather. But over time, it’ll start to fluff out and rough out a little bit and have a lot of cool patina.

A very legendary name in the boot world that pioneered this very slim, sleek, but work boot look. Interesting, rare, harder to find on the market leathers. Handmade boots and shoes in Canada to a painfully high degree of quality. Great quality control, very limited supply numbers, very very small company, a cult-like following that increases demand a lot when they don’t increase supply.

Final Thoughts: The Price of Quality

People will argue all day why Vibergs cost so much, how much they should actually cost, and how much they actually cost to make, but the simple answer is those cost $740, and I bought a pair so they can sell them for $740 because they always sell out.

They are essentially the complete opposite of the Daeful Men’s Comfort Anti-Slip Dress Shoes Party Glossy Men’s Wedding Low Top Flats Leather Shoe Loafers Black—made to appeal to everybody and nobody at the same time versus made to appeal to a very small group of people who will say “if you know, you know.”

Watch This Review

Bye Bye

That’s about it for cheap vs. expensive shoes. There’s pandemonium going on at Iron Snail HQ. A lot of big things are changing, and I’m very excited to tell you about them. I hope you’re having a good day. I’ll see you all very soon. Thank you for reading this article, goodbye!

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.