Gustin Footwear

Yeah, but CP was the innovater of that style, so they can get that price. Knockoffs are always knockoffs.

The CPO had pocket diarrhea and the briefcase has a stupid, unprotected bottom. The shoe looks like an exact copy.

I'll be honest, for the money, I like my G jeans. They do enough details, like the yoke sewn over the lowers, instead of under, the half lined pockets and the red bar tacks, that aren't unique, but also aren't the exact same formula as another brand that to me, the combination of lower price and wait time at least partially justify their existence.

Their shirts just don't work for me and their jackets have never caught my eye. I own a belt, but would support Marshdown going forward. But now that they're just directly copying more established products, I just find it embarrasing. What's next, a G Watch that's just a shitty quartz Shinola? Oh wait, Filson beat them to that!

I'm surprised at how upset you are about all of this?

I don't recall actually being upset by any of it. Gustin has made a few decisions I don't agree with as a customer and I haven't bought from them in about six months. I have continued to recommend them for jeans though, but now that they're just directly copying successful designs and not sticking to the US made thing, I'm probably done with recomendations too.

Not upset, just open to continued input on my opinion of what was a promising company in my pursuit of decent US manufactured items and think I've closed the door on this chapter. I'll leave you to your G rah rah party.

Just wanted to actually thank the mods and all posters on here for what's been a fun journey. I had a lot of initial hope for Gustin, had a strong WTF moment when they fubared their forum, but found this place and have thoroughly enjoyed the knowledge sharing about other brands that I wouldn't have probably been as exposed to if the G Forum were still up.

I think the weird thing is G completely changes one of their core values to offer this product when the product isn't an original design and offers no greater value to the consumer. Why buy these when you have to wait 5 months, sizing is wonky, and you can get a comparable product from an established player for the same price?

Isn't crowd funding supposed to give us a cheaper product with more options?

It is cheaper?  What are you comparing these to?

But you say CP copy like CP's shoes don't look like any other leather sneaker.  If a company decides to jump into the higher end leather sneaker market, the only main differences you'll see from company to company will be stitching color and eyelets.  So regardless of how they did their leather sneakers, it'd have looked like some other company's sneaker.

For one, Greats brand offers almost the exact same shoe, also handmade in Italy for the same price. Difference is they have a return policy, are ready to ship, offer half sizes, and offer free returns/exchanges.

A few bucks more gets you into a completely made in the USA product in Rancourt. Sebago (although not the same quality workmanship) retails and mass produces their dockside shoe in Horween Chromexcel for $140 MSRP. You can buy them on Amazon for about $120. $120 more for a G sneaker that is crowd funded?

Just seems like the value isn't there. I also do not like the carbon footprint of shipping things across the world, just to ship them back.

G's two core values were: "Radical value" because of their crowd funding model and made in the USA and I feel like they are straying from both of those values. You support a company based on what they stand for and what they're about, and its disappointing to see that. 

The carbon footprint argument is indeed strange and, frankly, illogical.  First of all, the processing and manufacturing processes for denim and leather are themselves incredibly harmful and unsustainable, so the carbon footprint for denim and leather shoes is very high. In addition, unless people are only buying organic cotton harvested and processed in the US, then any Japanese, Italian, etc. denim has a significant carbon footprint.

First of all, you did not address my point that Great brand has a better return policy, in stock merchandise, and more options.

Second of all, I make a lot of choices based on what is good for the environment or my community. Of course I cannot make every choice this way, but the carbon footprint argument has total validity. I choose a lot of products based on where they originate from or how far they've traveled. I do what I can when I can. The "it's all bad so f!@k it" argument is silly. Every little bit helps, and that philosophy is central to my core values.

If the carbon footprint or labor sourcing isn't important to you, that's fine. It is to me.

So I'm one of those "crazy" people who backed the Horween Low-Tops. Someone alluded to this earlier in the thread, but I've spent as much and more before on Nike's, which are of vastly inferior quality and I assume made mostly of exploitive labor and children's tears. In terms of style, I like high quality but I hate formality. I feel like these shoes are just for me. And I've ordered a variety of items from Gustin for myself and family and everything has come in just about perfect. The only concern I have is the sizing. I wear a 10.5-11 in just about every other shoe (including those Nike's) so I'm going with a 10 on G's shoes, if anyone has any thoughts on that.

And just to throw in my 2 cents - I think the argument about the social relations of production and the footprint are super important, and I'd like to think I'm somewhere in the middle. If we stop to analyze the sustainability and relations of every single object we interact with in our daily lives, life would be paralyzing given contemporary contexts. But going full twitter.com/nihilist_arbys doesn't seem productive either. I have a pair of Hugo Boss dress shoes that cost as much as these G's and I looked on the inside today to discover they were made in Bangladesh. I shuttered. These G's might not be perfect, but they can't be nearly as bad as that. (I hope?)

I wear 10-10.5 in Nike, and 8.5 in red wing. Nike is on the far end of vanity sizing for shoes and way off brannock in my experience, so it seems a good choice for you. Now the only question is how close they actually come to that. I don't think they're getting custom margom soles made, so it might be worth looking into how those are sized. Though I'd imagine a manufacturer can stamp their shoe with whatever size they feel like.