Leather boot upper repair
Saw some people here discussing leather repairs so thought I'd ask this.
Hi, some time ago I inherited these Loake chelseas. They're at least 20 years old and were not cared for especially well. Cracks developed in the creases (possibly due to lack of conditioning?) and at some point sand got into the cracks.
Is there anything a decent cobbler or leatherworker can do to at least stabilise this? I'd love to wear them but I'm worried they'd deteriorate.
5 Replies
I also have some old Loakes that are in a very similar condition that I recently spent a bit of time on! I'll get some pics together
But basically, I started by cleaning them up as much as I could, get a warm damp (not wet) cloth and really give them a scrub. Stuff them with towels or socks or newspaper or something to fill the shoes as much as you can to smooth out the creases while you're doing this
Then you'll wanna get some leather conditioner, and just work that in a couple of times. Leave it to dry, do another coat, work it right into the creases and small cracks
I then went over mine with some black shoe polish cause I was trying to darken up the light areas of leather. This worked OK, but if there's any scuffs or places where the coating has worn off then these will go darker. So might be advisable to get some similar colour brown polish
I also waxed mine with some leather shoe beeswax. Try and melt this slightly then really rub it in with a cloth / your fingers until it permeates the leather. This especially will help fill any small cracks and add a protective layer against the elements
(I'll be fully honest though, unless they are the Loake 1880 range the leather itself probably isn't greeeat. My ones were Loake L1 (similar would be "designLoake" or "Loake Lifestyle", and it's just coated / bonded leather. Hard to completely fix up the areas where the coating has come off, so your mileage may vary)
Main thing is to keep conditioning them every few months to stop the leather drying out to much and nip the cracking in the bud. And apply wax now-and-again especially during the wetter seasons
This is how mine came out. You can see the areas like on the right foot by the crease/ toe bend that have gone darker with the polish as well as areas of the coated leather where no colour would take and there's a lighter coloured mark. I couldn't seem to do anything about that but hey let's just call it character.
Try and get wax right into those creases, and you can even (gently) take a hairdryer to it afterwards to melt it in properly
Thank you for the advice! I'll look into getting some wax and try to DIY it. I have no idea what line these are from or even their exact age, I just know they've been in the family since we left England 20-odd years ago - I can barely make out the Loake logo on the inside. Your shoes look great btw!
Likewise to your boots! Especially with cool vintage ones like that, gotta embrace the scuffs and creases as all part of the character and story of the boots 😁 Good luck with the restoration, I think they'll come up great with some conditioner and waxing!