A shoe decorated with small perforations and often serrated edges along its panels.
Brogueing is a decoration, not a type of shoe. The V&A describes brogues as shoes whose stitched uppers are decorated with a perforated design, and Tricker’s describes brogueing as the perforations and serrations in shoe leather. Tricker’s and Loake note that the holes were first meant to let water drain from the shoe; Cheaney states that today they are purely decorative.
The amount of decoration sets the grade. Tricker’s describes a quarter brogue as a toe cap with perforations along the cap stitching, a semi-brogue as one with perforations along the stitching and on the cap itself, and a full brogue as a semi-brogue with a wingtip. Cheaney adds the longwing, created by American shoemakers, whose wing runs all the way to the heel. Because the decoration is independent of the lacing, a brogue may be an Oxford or a Derby. It also appears on boots and monk straps: Crockett & Jones lists full-brogue Derby boots and chukkas, and Cheaney’s archive includes a brogued monk.
In job listings
Listings rarely name brogues. The decoration lies on the upper, so the word belongs with the roles that prepare, stitch and assemble uppers in a house’s shoe workshop, and with the product teams that specify a style. See current shoe upper roles.
