Best Men’s Dress Shoes 2024? [Birchbury Brenston & Bramford Reviews]
(calm music) – This is Tom Biernacki and today, I'm talking about one of
my favorite dress shoes, and I am a little bit biased, I will admit this ahead of time. The CEO reached out to me
about a year or two ago, and he sent me a couple
free samples of Birchbury, is this upside down? I don't think it is. It's a great shoe. Right now I've got three of them. I've purchased some myself, some, full disclosure, they sent me, but it's been a little while. Like, I mean, look at
how beat up these are. I've put some serious mileage on these. Guys, thank you so much
for watching this video. We appreciate your likes,
your subscribes, your comment. We really love hearing
if this stuff helps, it really makes a big
difference for us, so thank you. Keep it pretty simple, it's not a big corporation,
it was started by one guy, but he's done a great job. I'm looking at his growth,
he's done phenomenal now, but I'll tell you what I like. The minimalist shoe movement,
it has gotten really big.
A lot of people love the
fact that you can wear shoes that aren't very constrictive. So the big thing about these are, look it, your toes can fit in here pretty good. And what I like about
it is most dress shoes are pointy in the front and a
pair of orthotics won't fit. So I'm not a huge fan
of the minimalist shoes, even though a lot of people are. For younger people, they fit
great, and that can work great. But for older people, I
recommend getting some support. I even had somebody come over today and we were talking about dress shoes and I got them to get
a pair of Birchburys. And what the real key for me is you can get an orthotic in here, so you can get an orthotic in here and you can get a custom orthotic in here.
You can get ones that take pressure off the front of their foot, even without the orthotic,
they give you a lot of support, but you can get a nice
over-the-counter insert into a good pair of dress shoes. And that's really what
makes the difference for me. Great shoe otherwise, it's held up well, I must have put like a couple
hundred miles on these. I've been wearing them, I
would say, pretty regularly, couple days a week for over a year or two, you could even see my
regular dress shoes here. They're pretty nice. I wear these almost on a daily basis. I wear my running shoes in the hospital, but you can see a pair of dress shoes with orthotics in there.
You can get those in there, and this has some serious mileage on it. So a lot of casual shoes,
they're pointy in the front. And what happens is that
squeezes on your toes, that can create some bunion
pain, some hammertoe pain, and number two, there is generally
minimalist shoe type stuff. And what happens is it's too flexible. It doesn't have a lot of support. The heel's not very supportive. You want some good features
in your shoe that support it, but at the same time you want that freedom to have your toes moving around. So couple basic features
I look for in a shoe are, it basically needs some support. See how this casual shoe
does not support you at all. See how the back's not supporting you? In the Birchbury shoe, stiff back. See how it's pretty stiff? It doesn't twist too
much, so when I grab it, I'm really trying to twist and see how it doesn't bend in the middle? And what happens is when you land, see it bends just at the big toe, whereas in another casual shoe, see how it bends in the middle? And I know I'm being
kind of hard on this guy, but Oxford dress shoes, for
example, have a heel lift.
This has no heel lift. The heel sits at the
same level as the toes. It's not driving the
pressure into your toes. Most casual dress shoes or dressy shoes have a pointy front. See how it creates a V? These guys right here,
it's more of a curved one. And I'm gonna show you in a graphic why that's not crushing your toes. So two factors crush your toes, the pointy front plus
when your foot twists out, your foot gets wider and flattens more. So this one, because it doesn't bend and it's got the stiff heel, your foot doesn't flatten out as much. And the toes don't spread out as much, and it's not crushed by the V point in the front at the same time. So those two factors really help your toes during a long day when you're walking, when you're at a nice dinner,
when you're at a nice meeting. I'm not a huge material guy, but it is a leather
shoe, it's pretty nice.
Personally, see these insoles right here? They brag about them on
the website a little bit. I'm not a huge fan of the insoles. Are these anything special? They're a little bit nice. They got a little bit
cushion, but what happens is, here's why I really like these shoes. Right here, an over-the-counter insert. If I can get an over-the-counter
insert into a shoe and it can relatively fit in there because the toes aren't pointy, then you can fit a nice
over-the-counter insert. And my favorites are
down in the show notes, but for my money, if you can get an insert
that's pretty low cost and put it in a dress shoe, there is no reason you can't stand all day with relatively little pain. Whereas if I stood in a shoe like this, this would absolutely obliterate my foot in like half an hour. So you have all the
factors you need in a shoe, the stiff heel, the flexibility,
the lack of crush up here, you can fit an orthotic in there, and that's gonna really
take a lot of pressure off your foot.
So, one thing I always say
is if there's no orthotic, look at how the foot flattens out. And we know in another shoe, it already crushes in the middle. Whereas in an orthotic, now, granted, I'm given
the shoe too much credit, but the fact that it
fits an orthotic is huge. See how it's not flattening out there? That is huge for me. That is a number one criteria for me when getting a casual or a dress shoe. The next thing I really like is check out the laces right here. Self-lacing, plus you
can pull the tongue out. It comes down, easy to slip on, especially if you're an older person. If you need to use a shoehorn, it's already taken care
of, another nice feature. What does zero drop mean? This is not a zero drop. See how much lift you have here? And then up here, it's a little bit less, most normal running shoes are like an 8 to 12 millimeter
lift in the heel compared to the front.
That takes a little bit
of pressure off the heel. These guys kind of go
with the barefoot element because it's equal at the
back and as the front. Generally younger people
tolerate that well, if you're older like 60, 50, 70, I know that's not the usual YouTube crowd, but you generally want to get a little bit more of a heel lift. Whereas if you're younger,
go with a zero drop, unless you have like Achilles tendonitis or something like that, because
that will keep you flexible. That will keep your muscles working. The whole debate of barefoot
shoe versus non barefoot shoe, I can talk about that all day. And in fact, we have a video
right here to talk about it. There's a lot of factors.
Generally, if you're
younger and healthier, go with more of a bare foot, if you're older and have
more problems in your knees, your hips and other places, go with something with a
little bit more of a heel lift, a little bit more cushion,
a little bit more support. That's a general rule
that I see work well. As much as I'm raving about
these, this is not sponsored. I'm not getting paid to do this, but I like this because it
has a lot of room in the toes, it's not pointy, it's
stiff through the midsole. It's stiff through the
heel, it's easy to get on. It has zero heel drop which
is good for younger people and it fits an orthotic. So I'm not a huge fan of these, even though they brag about
them on their website.
I get another over-the-counter insert or my custom insert in here. Not a lot of dress shoes
can fit the custom insert. So that's why I love these. If you do have a dress shoe,
like an Oxford tennis shoe, some people have to use a shoe stretcher. I go over a video, how
to use a shoe stretcher, but see, this guy doesn't need that. It's already done for you,
there's room in the toes. There's a link in the bottom. These are called the Birchbury Bramfords. They kind of range $100 to $150, depending on what time you get them. But check out the link down
below and see if you agree. They give a 30 day refund policy. So if you don't like them. And you could tell here's
a nicer, newer one, I haven't really opened that up. And you could tell, I'm gonna
get the paper out of here.
It's stuffed in there. And even without the
orthotic, they're not bad, but I would recommend getting
over-the-counter orthotic because I'm a biased podiatrist, but I would recommend you do that. So Birchbury, look it, these
are really nice right here. These ones I haven't worn. These are more the brown ones. I've been wearing the
dark ones like, I mean, I'm talking a year of consistent wearing and more like the casual shoes right here. These are pretty good. Get some orthotics in there, if you need dress shoes that
you can get orthotics into, get yourself a pair of Birchburys. There's some promo codes
down here, some links. Owner's a great dude, great pair of shoes. They're durable, are they the cheapest? They're probably not the cheapest. I'm sure you could get
cheaper ones out there, but personally, that's my dress shoe
that I'm using right now. And if you guys want to as well, go for it, they are a
great company, great guy. They message while they're very polite.
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