A black blucher shoe
Open lacing with vamp in one piece – the hallmark of a blucher shoe

A blucher ( /ˈbluːtʃər/ or /ˈbluːkər/, German pronunciation: [ˈblʏçɐ], Blücher) is a style of shoe with open lacing, its vamp made of a single piece of leather ("one cut"), with shoelace eyelets tabs sewn on top.[1]

The blucher is similar to a derby since both feature open lacing, in contrast to the Oxford shoe, which uses closed lacing. However, in the derby, the upper has large quarters with eyelets sewn on top, and in the blucher, the upper is made of one cut, with only the small eyelet tabs sewn on top. In American English, the terms are sometimes confused, with "blucher" also being used to refer to derby shoes and "Oxford" also being used to refer to bluchers.

The blucher is named after the 18th-century Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, who commissioned a boot with side pieces lapped over the front in an effort to provide his troops with improved footwear. The design was adopted by armies across Europe.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Sternke, Helge (2006). Alles über Herrenschuhe. Berlin: Nicolai Verlag. ISBN 9783894792527. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
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