Corinne Yau

Add a cup of white vinegar to that soak if you want. Some people swear it sets the remaining dye, and at worst it costs you a cup of vinegar.

Normal, and the depth of the crease is mostly about the leather rather than the fit. Full grain leather with a firm finish creases in a few sharp lines. Softer or corrected grain creases into many fine ones. Neither is a defect and neither is reversible.

What you can do is stop it getting worse and stop it cracking:

• shoe trees after every wear, cedar ones, put them in while the boot is still warm so the leather dries in the extended shape
• condition lightly every 15-20 wears, more in winter. A dry crease is what eventually cracks
• rotate. A day off between wears lets the leather dry properly and roughly doubles how long they look good

If you have unusually deep single creases across the whole toe and lots of movement inside, that can be too much length. A thumb's width is right though.

Every six to eight weeks in a wet winter, less in summer. Thin coat, let it sit overnight, buff it off. Over-conditioning makes leather soft and saggy so don't overdo it.

It's fixable but it's the most expensive alteration there is, typically 80-150 because the sleeve has to come off and go back on. Not worth it on a jacket under a few hundred, absolutely worth it on a good one you'll wear for a decade.

What to ask for in the shop instead: try brands cut for a narrower shoulder, and try soft-shouldered jackets with little or no pad. A structured jacket with a big pad has a fixed shoulder width that has nothing to do with yours. An unstructured or lightly padded one drapes off your actual shoulder and the 2cm problem mostly disappears.

Also ask specifically whether the model comes in a slim or drop-8 cut. Same chest, narrower shoulder and waist, and that's exactly your shape.

Two pairs at 150, not one at 300 and not three at 100.

The rotation point is real and it's not a small effect — leather needs about 24 hours to dry out, and a shoe worn every single day in an office will be visibly tired in a year regardless of what it cost. One 300 pound pair worn daily will not outlast two 150 pound pairs worn alternately, which is the trap in the "buy once cry once" framing.

Three at 100 gets you into glued construction where the sole can't be replaced, so you're buying disposable shoes with a rotation. Better than one pair daily, worse than two decent ones.

At 150 a pair you can usually still find welted or at least a proper resoleable construction on sale or second hand, and a resole at 60-90 in three years keeps them going.

It's construction, not washing. A collar that keeps its roll has either a fused interlining that hasn't failed yet or, better, an unfused collar with a soft sewn-in canvas. Cheap fused collars delaminate — the glue lets go in patches after a few hot washes — and once that happens no starch brings the shape back, it just makes a flat thing stiff.

Check for bubbling or a slightly rippled texture in the collar when you hold it to the light. That's delamination and it's terminal.

What helps on shirts that aren't dead yet: wash at 30, never tumble on high, and hang them on a proper hanger straight out of the machine rather than folding them damp. The heat is what kills the glue.