Norwegians - the rustic shoe for leisure

Example variants

Brown Norwegians in smooth leather

Here is a typical, simple Norwegian in the appropriate color brown. The plain smooth leather makes the decorations and stitching stand out better without looking overdone. This makes it a shoe you can wear quite well in a relaxed office environment, but also in everyday life for pretty much all purposes. To me, the purist smooth leather makes it look more serious than many other casual shoes, but it’s still well suited for day-to-day wear. The Norwegian-typical decoration at the front of the shoe also contributes to that.

Alternative: Brown Norwegians in the French variant

As an alternative to the standard Norwegian, there is also this Norwegian in the so-called French variant. The difference lies in the U-shaped decoration set higher on the instep, with the flat plateau and, consequently, the longer seam for the split toe. This makes the vamp overall look less flat, more curved and elegant. So you can use this variant for somewhat more formal purposes, especially in black, or you can choose it in brown as a slightly more elegant everyday option.

Special characteristics

What characterizes the Norwegian are the following three features:

• its distinctive U-shaped ornamentation on the front, achieved with the help of two curved seams
• the split toe, which connects to the U-shaped ornamentation and runs all the way down
• the lacing quarters in blucher style, without a derby curve

It’s especially the decoration at the front of the shoe that gives the Norwegian its casual character.

The standard variant of the Norwegian has this fairly flat U-shaped plateau, which extends much farther than in the French variant. This also makes the standard Norwegian a bit chunkier, somewhat comparable to a Budapest shoe in that respect.

For the fit, that means your foot has more room inside, because the upper leather doesn’t slope downward until later, leaving more space.

Variants

Norwegians made of brown Scotch-grain leather and with a lug sole

This is a very typical Norwegian, with a thick sole and a glued-on lug sole with a rustic look. The upper leather goes in the same direction: the already relaxed character of the Norwegian model is further reinforced by the embossed brown leather. And the embossing isn’t subtle either, but rather deep and relief-like, which fits very well with the already rustic appearance.

To me, it’s a very nice shoe for activities in the countryside, which you can also use for short hikes in the woods if you don’t have hiking boots with you. - A successful model in which the various shoe details match up quite well stylistically.

Dark blue Norwegians with striking ornamentation

Here we have a relaxed, dark-blue Norwegian in the French variant. While the French variant normally makes a Norwegian model more elegant, the very striking decorative stitching does the opposite here—and even the unadorned smooth leather can’t stop that. So we have a relatively ambivalent model made up of formal and casual elements, in which the casual elements ultimately prevail: led by the thick decorative seams and supported by

• the contrasting color of the stitching and lacing
• the thickness of the laces
• the striking welt with slight corners

To me, it’s an interesting shoe to look at, one that creates a bit of tension, but also reduces that tension between formal and informal through a relatively clear winner. Therefore, you should mainly wear the shoes in your free time, for example with jeans, chinos, or corduroy trousers.

Brown Norwegians made of buffalo leather with double stitching

This is a pair of nice casual shoes in brown with an unusual welt. The buffalo leather and the thick sole also contribute to this relaxed character. In my view, the shoes go perfectly with light jeans, but can also be combined well with other trousers such as corduroy or coarse wool. If I were buying a pair of high-quality leather shoes for the very first time, this model would be a top candidate for me. In addition, from a Norwegian-shoe perspective, a couple of small details are still interesting: the seam running all the way around on the front of the shoe across the upper leather does not form a true arc, but has two corners at the very front left and right. For me, that’s a good way to loosen up a Norwegian shoe again and make it a bit more angular and therefore more interesting.

I think that, in this case, it would have been better if the welt of the shoe had followed along more at the front and had slightly sharper edges. I think there are people for whom something like that hurts the eye a bit when looking at it: on top, a somewhat angular curve, and on the bottom, a quite rounded curve with no visible corners. Personally, I can go along with that, but I don’t weigh it as heavily here, which is why, for me, this is an overall quite successful shoe—especially for such a casual model that is allowed to take a bit more liberty.

Norwegian shoes made of brown suede

Here you see relaxed shoes for spring, summer, and fall: the suede is particularly breathable, and as a result your feet sweat a bit less in shoes like these. Overall, these are excellent casual shoes that you can combine well with jeans or, for example, with beige chinos or linen trousers. Since a Norwegian shoe already has a relaxed casual character anyway, this is further reinforced by the suede. That’s why the Norwegian model and suede are, for me, a very successful combination. Yes, perhaps the Norwegian model—alongside the loafer—is even among the best models you can use for suede.

Similar pseudo variants

Ankle-boot variant with Norwegian-typical ornamentation at the front

There are also ankle boots in the Norwegian style: they have the all-around ornamentation at the front of the shoe and the separated toe cap. The rest, including the area around the lacing, can vary, and these ankle boots here even have a derby facing. Without this derby facing—and probably also without the low number of eyelets—they would most likely be called Norwegian ankle boots. As it is, however, they bear a strong resemblance to the typical Norwegian shoe and are otherwise made in a derby style—more precisely, a pointed derby style. So, in my view, they are more like derby ankle boots. Ultimately, though, these are so-called chukka boots with Norwegian-like ornamentation at the front and a derby-typical facing on the side.

You can combine the shoes quite well in fall and winter with, for example, grey trousers made of coarse wool.

Reddish-brown pseudo-Norwegian with a minimal shaft cut

By my definition, this is not a pure Norwegian shoe, because the shaft cut is simpler and lacks sewn-on leather pieces for the lacing. However, the shoe also does not have a derby facing on the sides, which is why it still comes very close to a classic Norwegian shoe.

This simplification makes the shoes simpler and more purist—they are thereby a bit less made for leisure and a bit more for the office or somewhat more formal occasions. The seams and decorations are also kept very fine and subtle and likewise support this character of the shoes. This shoe is therefore a beautiful overall composition in which the various details work together excellently.

Despite everything, for me it does not deserve the designation Norwegian. You can say it’s only a small detail—a small seam on each side—that this shoe here does not have. And yet that seam supports the relaxed character of a typical Norwegian shoe. With this shoe, that character is not present in that area. And yet I concede a strong resemblance to the Norwegian shoe, which is why I would be most likely to call this shoe a pseudo-Norwegian or quasi-Norwegian. For many other people, however, these shoes are almost certainly Norwegian shoes.

Counterexample: derby with a resemblance to the Norwegian shoe

This derby looks similar to a Norwegian shoe because of its ornamentation, but it has two characteristics that differ from a Norwegian shoe:

• the derby facing on the sides reveals that it is not based on the Blücher model like the Norwegian shoe
• the ornamentation on the vamp goes only around, but it does not go down the middle at the toe

Therefore, these shoes are not Norwegian shoes, even if the resemblance to Norwegian shoes appears relatively large at first glance. Overall, these are brown derbies with a U-shaped decoration that you can wear well in a relaxed everyday setting.