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Shoe Care Guide

How to Use a Shoe Horn

Shoehorns are simple to use but are essential in keeping the heels of your shoes crease-free. In this video tutorial, Kirby Allison shows you how to use a shoe horn properly and the different types of shoe horns we offer.

Products used in this video:

Transcription

Hi! I'm Kirby Allison, and we love helping the well-dressed take care of their wardrobes. In this video I'm going to show you really quickly how to use a shoehorn and talk you through some of the important points to keep in mind to ensure you're using it properly.

Shoe horns come in many different sizes and so whether or not you're using something small like our travel shoe horn or our full length 24-inch shoehorn it's really just a function of whether or not you have the space or in the case of our full-length shoehorn whether or not you want to be able to use it while standing up. I'm going to demonstrate how to use two shoehorns in this video, one just a standard kind of smaller shoehorn that you would use while you're sitting and then our full-length shoehorn that you would use while standing.

The first shoe horn I'm going to show you how to use is our tab shoe horn. This is one of my favorite shoe horns. Although it is a quite large, certainly larger than the travel shoe horn, this is actually what I carry with me in my briefcase and my luggage. To use a shoehorn simply rest the shoehorn in the back of the shoes like this. Then carefully slide your foot into the shoe so that as your heel is sliding into the shoe the shoe horn is coming out. Like all other shoe horns this one will effectively prevent damage to the back of your dress shoes. This is even more important for people who own bespoke shoes such as myself since they fit so tightly. Always loosen your laces. You want your laces as loose as possible, and a pair of bespoke shoes that are really tight you're going to want to loosen your laces even more just to allow this shoe to open as much as possible as you slide your foot in.

Next we're going to use our full-length shoehorn. This shoehorn measures 24 inches long. It's a beautiful long shoehorn that allows you to place your shoes on without having to bend over or sit down. This works especially well for people that might not be as mobile, and don't have a chair in their closet, or don't want to bend down in order to put their shoes on. Again, this shoehorn does not require you to reach down as far so you don't have to bend over. Simply insert the shoehorn into the back of your shoe. Then slide your foot in. As your heel is sliding into the shoe pull up slightly on the shoehorn so that by the time your heel is fully seated into the shoe you've pulled the shoehorn completely out. The reason that that's important is as you're sliding your foot into the shoe you don't want the shoehorn to further wedge your foot into the shoe making it difficult to put on. As you can see shoe horns are quite simple to use but are essential for maintaining shoes that are a snug fit.

Of course all of these beautiful horn shoe horns are available on The Hanger Project. What I love about AbbeyHorn is just the natural marbling of the different colors of horn. This is a natural material. Absolutely beautiful, but we do have other shoe horns here on the hanger project and are proud to offer one of the widest and most comprehensive selections of shoe horns available anywhere in the world.

In today's video I'm wearing a Bespoke Chris Despos Fresco Suit. You'll see it has patch pockets and a tab trouser band. I have a white Bespoke Charvet shirt. I'm wearing one of our Sovereign Grade Ancient Madder Ties, one of my favorite ties actually. I have a pair of our Horn Hanger Project Collar Stays. I'm wearing my show Chopard Perpetual Calendar Watch, and then I actually have a pocket square that was a gift to me from Gary Tok that is one of the photographs from the master shoemakers book. I'm wearing one of my absolutely favorite socks. These are the Palatino Giotto Small Dot Melange Cotton Dress Socks, and then last but certainly not least I have my George Cleverly Russian Reindeer Split Toed Derby Shoes. Bespoke, my most recent pair of bespoke shoes incredibly special super comfortable and I can't tell you how much I love wearing these.

If you have any questions or comments on this video please feel free to ask them in the comment section below. I enjoy getting back to as many of those comments as possible. If you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs up, and please subscribe to our channel, and turn on your notifications by clicking the bell on the upper right hand corner so that you can learn whenever we release new videos and of course please visit hangerproject.com where we have the largest and most comprehensive collection of luxury garment care and shoe care accessories in the world as well as many other incredible products for the well-dressed. And while you're there subscribe to our newsletter to receive notifications of new product launches, promotions, as well as a weekly digest of all the videos we publish here on our YouTube channel. I'm Kirby Allison. Thanks for joining me!