Carmina: Is It Worth It? (Men's Luxury Dress Shoe Review)

About this video

The Gazette team conducts an in-depth review of Carmina, the Spanish shoemaker from Mallorca, examining whether their dress shoes justify their price point. They evaluate the brand’s history, design options across 27 lasts and 30 leather types, construction quality through physical dissection of a shoe, comfort and fit through extended wear testing, and customer service experience to determine overall value.

Key takeaways

• The Gazette team argues that Carmina offers excellent value at their main price point (£329/€395/$475) due to extensive customization options, quality construction comparable to Crockett & Jones hand-grade line, and above-average leather selection for the price range.
• The Gazette team found Carmina’s shoes feature thoughtful design details like thick leather linings, extensive seam taping, solid Goodyear-welt construction, and neat stitching, placing them above Allen Edmonds in quality, though with a stiffer break-in period than some competitors.
• The Gazette team cautions that Carmina’s customer service does not match American company standards—they observed inflexible return policies, charged return fees, and declined price-match requests—which may frustrate some buyers despite shoe quality.

Episode details: published February 4, 2022 · 188K views · 25:46 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. The style guidance summarized here is the Gentleman’s Gazette team’s own teaching and opinion, presented for education; product recommendations are theirs, not ours. Summaries are written by Self Growth Videos from each video itself.

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