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Review :: Yanko Double Monk

Earlier this year, Lusso Tailors acquired the Yanko distributorship and offered me some of the Yanko natural crust shoes to hone my patina skills. Excited, I decided to collaborate with them to expand their product offerings to their customers. Without hesitation, I ordered 3 pairs in one shot since I have been hearing rave reviews both online as well as through friends. At the same time those I ordered are some of the designs that have really appealed to me in my research about them. The first one I will write about is their double monks.

Some of Yanko shoe offering from Lusso Tailor

Some background of the Yanko shoe offerings from Lusso Tailors. For those who are unaware of this maker, Yanko hails from Spain and played a significant role during the history of Carmina and Meermin but are no longer associated to them since 2005. During 1961, José Albaladejo Pujadas took over the production from his great grand father and founded the brand Yanko. The factory's ability to churn out a million pairs of shoes made them famous during the 80s. But the market downturn coupled with competition from low cost shoemakers from China during the 90s forced Yanko to be put up for sale. A Catalan family called Camps purchased the company for a symbolic 1 dollar and tried to revive the business. It was not successful and in 2005 and the company filed for bankruptcy. The brand name is presumably ceded to the bank ever since.

Then in 2009, Antonio Llobera and his business partners purchased Yanko since then, and the brand has been steadily on the rise till today. They operate a basic webstore online and sell their shoes together through other retailers all over the world such as Japan, China, Singapore, Sweden and Poland etc... For those who is interested to find out more, you can refer to the link below.

Source::

https://www.reddit.com/r/goodyearwelt/comments/2ttiga/an_attempt_at_piecing_together_the/

http://www.afar.com/magazine/mallorca-spanish-style-beyond-the-beach

Okay enough with History lesson let’s start with review of Yanko should we?

Upper: Calf Colour: Colonial Brown (Originally natural crust) Design: Captoe Double monk Sole: Single leather Model: Rawley Last: 962 last Size: 7uk Width: G Source: Lusso Tailor

Leather

The leathers used in Yanko shoes are of premium quality. Leathers are sourced from Tanneries D'Annonay, Du Puy, and Kegar. Black shoes are all made from the famous Weinhemer Box Calf. Burgundy and Brown aniline calf from Tanneries D'Annonay. Suede is from Stead. While they're clearly not at the quality of Gazianos or Corthays, they present awesome value in their own space.

In this case, my shoe comes with natural crust, and that means the shoe comes without color, in it’s raw form. The natural crust leather is from Anonnay tannery (Purchased by Hermes recently) and is actually more costly if you are to order without any color since the leather is from one of the top tannery in the world.

I do notice after the patination with my own set of colours and treatment with Saphir Rejuvenator, the leather softens considerably and it has become very comfortable to wear. The natural crust leather is unlike stripped colored shoes that I’ve worked on before. Normally after stripping off the colours from an existing shoe, they are very thirsty for rejuvenator but it is not so with the Yanko natural crust leather. It seems to already have some form of conditioning and finishing with an fairly oily base that comes with the shoe. Rubbing them with your finger will generate some heat and release some oil to the leather. The other leather I’ve come across with such behaviours is the St Crispin baby calf.

The leather is soft as well and wearing them for the first time for the entire day doesn’t hurt my feet. There isn’t any stiffness to the heel which I have experienced when I wear my Atelier LLyr for the first few times.

Fit

Yanko has gathered a lot of interest locally within the shoe lover community but most of them are unwilling to purchase from online retailers due to sizing uncertainties. Yes it’s true that you can purchase and return if it doesn’t fit but it is too troublesome to ship back and reship with the correct size for you again. Not forgetting that usually the buyer has to bear the return shipping.

Now with Lusso Tailors having them in Singapore, sizing isn’t a problem anymore. There are couple of lasts that are available from Yanko shoes and depending on which last, your corresponding size varies. For example, I am 7.5UK for most of Carmina shoes but when it comes to Yanko, I fit 7UK for some of their lasts as their widths are in G or H, hence the need to size down. Below are my experiences on their last with my sizing recommendation.

915 - Soft square toe normal width (True to size) 961 - Chiseled toe wide width (I size down half) 962 - Classic round toe wide width (I size down half)

While sizing down on the 962 last, I feel no discomfort wearing these double monks for the whole day as they're on a wider width. Length is just nice for me. The big and last toes are comfortable enough without touching the edge of the shoe, even after one whole day of walking and standing. Probably due to the width of their last.

Conclusion

All in all, I am happy with the quality of the leather as well as the fit of the shoe. Comfortable right out of the box (after my patina) and the soft leather makes my feet breathable. I can’t comment much on the complete end shoe finishing as this is a patina pair. Workmanship wise, I will rate it better than Meermin classic line, somehow closer to or above their Maestro line but slightly just lower than Carmina. It is most obvious on the welt when I compare them to my Meermin classic line, Maestro linea and Carmina.

In the wild shot

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