A shoe with a toe cap whose pointed center and curved sides form a wing-like or W-shaped outline.
Barker describes the wingtip Oxford’s toe cap as one with edges that extend along the sides of the shoe. Wingtips often have brogue perforations, but the name describes the cap’s shape rather than its decoration. The two meet in the full brogue: Tricker’s defines it as a semi-brogue with the wingtip design, and Cheaney treats full and wingtip brogues as one grade. On a longwing, which Cheaney credits to American shoemakers, the wing continues all the way to the heel.
The cap is not tied to a lacing style. Crockett & Jones makes long-wing Derbies, wing-cap monk straps, and wing-cap and long-wing loafers as well as brogue Oxfords. A cap that runs straight across the toe makes a cap toe instead. On the Met’s classic spectator shoes, the wing tip and foxing are black or brown leather against a white upper.
In job listings
Wingtip is seldom named in listings. It is design and development vocabulary, used by footwear designers and technical designers who draw and specify the line of a cap, and by the product teams that build a style into a collection. See current footwear design roles.
