# Toe cap creasing?



## knite (Nov 12, 2009)

All of my dress shoes (five pairs of AE, six months old) have developed creasing before the toe box (the area around your toe joints). Is this a consequence of the shoes not being fully broken in? The shoes feel broken in as far as comfort goes.

Compare to these pictures or these. Some of those shoes have gentle bends/warping in the area, but my shoes look much more creased or "crinkled". This has occurred on every pair. I have eight more pairs just arrived from the recent AE sale; is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening, or to fix up the older pairs?

I've applied AE's leather conditioner (old t-shirt) followed by AE polish (AE brush) a few times, but this doesn't seem to help much with the creasing.


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## oroy38 (Nov 11, 2009)

This is what happens when you wear shoes. Leather is skin, just as we have creases in our skin where we bend, leather will develop the same creases. It's natural.

Creasing can be minimized by several methods:

1) Having a large rotation of shoes so that each shoe is worn less often
2) Storing your shoes on shoe tree
3) Proper leather maintenance

That's about all that can be done. However, there is one surefire method to preventing creasing in your shoes completely:

Don't wear them!


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## JerseyJohn (Oct 26, 2007)

Shoes normally crease over the first joint. On my shoes, that's always in back of the toe cap. If the crease happens in the toe cap itself, the shoe may be the wrong size. If the shoe is too long, an additional crease may develop in front of the toes.


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## Leighton (Nov 16, 2009)

My Evanston and Soho have a crease right at the cap toe seam, but only because thats where my crease is. The long cap toe basically causes that small crease. But I suppose its more of a small bump more than anything. I think it looks perfectly fine. Don't have that problem with PA.

Sounds like the shoe might be a tad too long.


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## knite (Nov 12, 2009)

I was sized to 8.5E at an AE store, confirmed by trying every combination +/- .5 length and +/- one width. :icon_smile_big: I store all my shoes with shoe trees in them.

Here's a picture I just took with my camera phone. Today is my first day wearing this pair out of the house, and you can already see creases.


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## BearBear (Jan 29, 2010)

The placement of those creases appear normal - not on the cap itself so that is good


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## Nerev (Apr 25, 2009)

That seems pretty normal. When you compare it to the pictures you linked in the original post, a lot are cordovan which crease much differently or have only had slight wear.

Regarding your polishing, if you are relatively new at it, it would take some time and experience to be able to polish out that area simply because the shoe flexes there. You should be using a horsehair brush (no idea if AE is but I would assume so) quite a bit, and I would consider finishing it with a rag or a cotton t-shirt to bring out a bit of dull shine. Play around with wax if you want to get a more shined look.


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## CuffDaddy (Feb 26, 2009)

This is inevitable. Shoes take a tremendous pounding, and are subject to serious stresses. They are going to get some creases where they flex the most - specifically, at/around the ball/toe joint. Call it "patina," and think of it as a sign of character.


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