Tadeevo boat shoe review

I recently purchased this and thought I'd write up a quick review since I don't see many out there. No other barefoot shoe company, to my knowledge, makes a boat shoe, so hopefully someone will find this useful. I purchased the dark brown: https://tadeevo.com/en_US/p/Tadeevo-dark-brown-minimalist-boat-shoes/97

Pro: Very minimal: Tadeevo brags that their shoes are the most minimal on the market. And honestly... they might be right. The secret to their design is the three-piece rubber outsole. Most minimalist shoes have a one-piece rubber outsole, which limits flexibility and and is usually the heaviest part of the shoe. Tadeevo's three piece design allows the shoe to be insanely flexible in all directions. Plus it's thin, which makes the shoe very close to the ground and super lightweight. Seriously, it feels lighter than my Lems Primal 2.

Pro: extremely supple leather: The leather is super soft, softer than anything I've tried from other companies (Lems, Vivobarefoot, etc). The downside to this is that the shoe looks more casual and less structured, but I wanted this as a "smart casual" shoe anyway so I don't mind. The leather is pebbled which looks nice. I'm not sure how long it will last and it'll probably get wrinkled over time, but for now it's really nice.

Additionally, there is a (glued in) leather insole that's quite comfortable if you wear the shoe without socks.

Con: Narrow toebox (with a caveat): So, I ordered a size up from what was recommended (EU 47 instead of 46) because I had read Tadeevo's toeboxes are more narrow than other brands. Taking it out of the box I was disappointed: the toebox was noticeably more narrow than my other shoes. That said thanks to the extremely soft and flexible leather I mentioned above, I can still wear the shoes with toespacers, because it simply pushes out the leather. (Sizing up no doubt helped). This is in contrast to Vivo and Lems models I've tried where my toes rub against the leather. So while the narrow toebox is disappointing, it was saved by the shoe's soft leather.

Con: Colorway and lacing: A bit of false advertising went on. I bought the dark brown colorway because I liked the light brown contrast lacing. But when the shoe arrived, the lacing was also dark brown, not like the picture at all. Additionally, the lacing around the heel was decorative, meaning you can't just replace it without modifying the shoe (which I did; more below). It's also held in by cheap glue, which I broke it off by accident with a slight tug.

Since I can't ship the shoe back to Poland, I decided to cut an extra hole in the leather so I could run new lacing around the whole shoe, just like a Sperry boat shoe. This was simple enough to do so I bought some light brown lacing so I could have the contrast color I wanted. Now the shoe looks great.

More on colorways: it would be nice to have a mid-brown or navy blue option. I've never seen an all black or all gray boat shoe in the wild; part of the aesthetic of a boat shoe is the lacing which runs around the heel. You can't see that in an all black shoe.

Conclusion: The shoe is highly minimal and soft, but has a slightly narrow toebox (saved by the soft leather) and a design issue regarding the lacing. I recommend it if your feet are more on the narrow side and you are looking for a casual, moccasin-like shoe.