Blackstock & Weber for 3sixteen.
Photos: Jeremy Mitchell
After teasing our collaboration loafers with Blackstock & Weber a few months ago, we are excited to finally launch them this upcoming weekend. We’ve had the opportunity to sell their core styles in our NY flagship store over the past year and have seen firsthand the excitement that customers have felt getting into their first pair of quality loafers. Our collaboration pair brings a little bit of a different perspective to what Blackstock & Weber typically does, and we’re excited to share why.
First off - if you haven’t had a chance to read our interview with the brand’s owner and creative director, Chris Echevarria, we highly suggest doing so here. What was high on our list was making sure that we preserved the overall widebody aesthetic that makes their loafers so unique.
When sitting down to design this shoe together, our first question was whether they had ever worked with crepe for soles before and the answer Chris gave us was “not yet.” We went back and forth with Blackstock & Weber’s factory in Portugal over the next 6 months to ensure the defining feature of this collaboration, the crepe wedge sole, came out perfectly. It’s taller than you’d expect - almost platform like - yet entirely in line with their trademark quad-stacked leather soles. This shoe, like all of their other offerings, has some weight and heft to it due to the build quality. We’ve found that other companies who popularized crepe soles cut corners with hollow inners; these (and the Padmore & Barnes collaboration we released this past fall) have 100% solid layered rubber crepe on them, which offers greater comfort and will last longer over time. It’s a very expensive and labor-intensive process but one that we were insistent on getting right.
The upper is crafted of a beautiful light brown suede from Charles F. Stead, a world-famous tannery based in Leeds, UK whose work we admire deeply. It’s got a beautiful, soft and luxe hand with a small smooth-out detail on the heel for a little bit of contrast. The shoe is finished with Blackstock’s bright yellow leather lining and branded gold foil heel stamps. The leather used on this shoe is a lot easier to break in than their core pebbled grain and should be comfortable on foot from day one.
As for sizing, we find that their shoes are pretty similar to workboot sizing, meaning we would recommend a full size down from your sneaker size if you’ve got wide feet and 1.5 sizes down if your feet are narrower. For those of you who already own a pair of Blackstock & Webers, their loafer last is consistent across all styles so you can take your typical size.
We’re releasing this shoe a little bit differently than how we usually do. The Blackstock & Weber for 3sixteen Crepe Wedge Loafers will retail for $375, and will be available on blackstockandweber.com and in-store at 3sixteen LA and 3sixteen NY on Friday, January 14th. Remaining stock will post on 3sixteen.com on Saturday, January 15th at noon EST. We’re excited for customers to come see and try these shoes on in-person, but please rest assured that we have plenty of stock set aside for our online release on Saturday.
