Slept-on Brands: Sebago
Am I the only person that completely forgot about Sebago?
It feels like Sperry completely ran away with the boat shoe market, but I recently came across a pair of boots from Sebago as part of Ssense’s (pronounced “essence“ believe it or not) end of season sale, and was pleasantly surprised by the design.
Now obviously as your faithful menswear reporter, I had to dig in a little further and see what Sebago has been up to lately.
If you’re not familiar with the brand, Sebago is a shoe company originally from Maine (and named after Sebago Lake of course), which became extraordinarily popular in the 1970’s and 80’s due to their dockside boat shoes.
They kind of fell out of favor in recent years, and I seldom hear mention of their name. About five years ago, they were sold to the company BasicNet, an Italian conglomerate that also owns the sportswear brand Kappa (known for their soccer/football kits).
Since then, they’ve been busy with some small collaborations with contemporary brands like Universal Works, Patta, and Engineered Garments.
Although collaborations are a great way to get one’s name back out there by revitalizing one’s image, that’s not really what I’m focusing on here. Instead, what I’m interested in is their in-house line.
To break it out further, Sebago has three classes of shoes: Campside, dockside, and cityside. These classes consist of camp/blucher mocs, boat shoes, and loafers respectively.
I’ll preface the rest of this by saying that blucher mocs are my favorite style of shoe. They’re very versatile and work really well through 3 out of 4 seasons (they look kinda out of place in the Summer). As such, most of my efforts here are geared toward their “Campsides“ line.
The main reason that Sebago has piqued my interest is that they seem to be going out of their way to experiment within their domain. As a manufacturer of primarily moc-toe shoes, they have to work around a very limited scope of operation - there really isn’t much room for innovation here at all.
With that being said, I was pleasantly surprised to see the team at Sebago taking a pretty big leap and experimenting with, for example, patchwork suede boat shoes. The design might not be for everyone (it is pushing some boundaries after all), but it shows some innovation in a field that is stagnant by its very nature. Interesting, if nothing else.
Back to the Campsides: This is probably one of the only collections of shoes that I’ve ever seen where I’ve said to myself “I think I would enjoy wearing every single pair they have on offer“.
I don’t want to make it sound like I’m gushing about this company (especially since I don’t even own any of their shoes currently (pls send me a pair of Keuka Leas Sebago)), so I’ll let their designs do the talking from here on out:
As you can see, there’s tons of suede. Almost exclusively suede, actually (for the campsides). The combination of that tobacco suede and a chunky white sole is *chef’s kiss* beautiful. Sebago also says that they try to incorporate traditional Native American moccasin construction techniques, which I believe are reflected in shoes 1, 2, and 5 above.
I’ll wrap this article up by including some reservations that I have about the brand:
First up, the prices are high. They are not produced in the USA, which isn’t necessarily a deal breaker in itself (it’s clearly possible though, as there are many moccasin-style shoe brands that still keep all production in Maine). That being said, the combination of a $200 minimum price tag plus the fact that they’re made in the Dominican Republic is a pretty tough pill to swallow. You can of course make the argument that that’s the cost of creativity in design (a fair point), but it’s still pretty rough.
Second, their designs are quite similar to the brand Yuketen. Yuketen, if you’re not familiar, is a very fashion-forward brand that operates in this same space of moccasin-style shoes. They’re really known for pushing the envelope fashion-wise, and it seems Sebago is drawing some inspiration from their success (perhaps inadvertently).
It’s hard to differentiate yourself in a niche that is so small and restricted, so it’s not really a surprise that some styles will overlap between brands, but nevertheless it’s something I noticed while writing this. For what it’s worth, Sebago’s price point (that I was just complaining about) is roughly half of what a pair of Yuketens go for (thank you geo-arbitrage and ruthless outsourcing of American manufacturing jobs!).
That’s all I have for you guys this time! Hope you enjoyed this write-up of an oft-forgotten moccasin brand. I like this format, so I’m planning on doing this with a bunch of high-end brands that I enjoy.
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Thanks for reading and see you next time!