You’ve seen it on the shelves of high-end boutiques. Those pristine oxfords or minimalist sneakers with perfectly horizontal bars of lace running up the tongue. No messy crosses. No overlapping X-patterns. Just clean, clinical lines. If you’ve ever tried to replicate it, you probably ended up with a tangled mess or, worse, one lace that’s three feet long while the other is a tiny stump. Learning to straight lace shoes isn't just about the aesthetic, though that's clearly the draw. It’s about pressure distribution.
Standard criss-cross lacing pulls the eyelets toward the center from both sides simultaneously. This is fine for running, but for stiff leather dress shoes, it can create "bridge pressure" across the top of your foot. Straight lacing, often called bar lacing or Lydiard lacing, allows the upper of the shoe to flex more naturally. It’s a game-changer for people with high arches.
Honestly, most people get this wrong because they try to follow the same "over-under" logic they learned in kindergarten. It doesn’t work like that. You have to think in terms of one "static" lace and one "active" lace.
The Anatomy of a Perfect Bar Lace
Before you even touch the strings, look at your eyelets. Straight lacing works best on shoes with an even number of eyelet pairs (like 4, 6, or 8). If you have five pairs, things get a bit weirder, and you have to use a diagonal pass or tuck a lace under the tongue. For the sake of your sanity, let’s assume you’re working with a standard 6-eyelet setup like you'd find on a pair of Common Projects or Allen Edmonds Park Avenues.
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Start by threading the lace through the bottom two holes (the ones closest to your toes) from the outside in. This is the foundation. You should have a horizontal bar on the outside and two lace ends hanging inside the shoe. Pull them tight and make sure they are exactly even.
Wait. Actually, don't make them even.
This is the secret: if you’re using the "Lydiard" method, one side needs to be significantly shorter than the other because it only travels up one side of the shoe, while the other side does all the heavy lifting. If you’re doing the "European Straight Lace," keeping them even is fine. But for the cleanest look, the "Bar" method is king.
How to Straight Lace Shoes Without Losing Your Mind
Let’s walk through the Bar method. It’s the one that looks the cleanest because all the "messy" vertical bits are hidden underneath the eyelet flaps.
Take the left lace end. Run it straight up the inside of the shoe to the next eyelet and poke it out. Now, pull it across to the opposite hole on the right side and push it in. You’ve just made your first bar.
Now, take the right lace end—the one you haven't moved yet. Skip the eyelet that the first lace just occupied. Move it up the inside to the third eyelet. Poke it out, and pull it across to the left side.
You’re basically leap-frogging.
- Lace A goes into hole 1, comes out hole 2, crosses to hole 2.
- Lace B goes into hole 1, skips hole 2, comes out hole 3, crosses to hole 3.
- Lace A then skips hole 3, comes out hole 4, crosses to hole 4.
It’s a rhythm. Up, out, across, in. Up, out, across, in.
If you do this correctly, you’ll notice a weird phenomenon. On the inside of the shoe, the laces are running vertically along the eyelet line. They aren't crossing the tongue. This is why it's so comfortable. There is no lace material pressing down on the delicate tendons on the top of your foot. According to shoe fit experts at places like Fleet Feet, this specific lacing technique is often recommended for runners suffering from extensor tendonitis, though it’s arguably more popular in the boardroom than on the track.
The Problem With Odd Numbers
If your shoes have 5 eyelets, you’re going to hit a wall at the top. You’ll have one lace end at the fifth hole and the other at the fourth. You can’t just leave it.
The easiest fix? At the very bottom, instead of a straight bar between the first two holes, run the lace diagonally from the first hole on the left to the second hole on the right. Then start your bar lacing from there. It hides the "cheat" down by the toe where no one is looking. Or, you can do a single diagonal cross at the very top. It’s not "pure," but it works.
Why Your Sneakers Might Hate This
Not every shoe is built for this. If you try to straight lace shoes that have thick, round athletic laces—think Nike Dunks or chunky skaters—it’s going to look bulky. The bars won't sit flat. They’ll twist and look like tiny sausages across your tongue.
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Flat laces are the only way to go here. Waxed cotton laces, specifically. The wax provides enough friction so that the bars don't slide around and become uneven while you're walking. If you’re using thin, silk-like laces found in some luxury sneakers, you might find that the "hidden" vertical segments underneath start to bunch up.
Also, consider the "gap." Straight lacing pulls the two sides of the shoe together in a very rigid way. If your shoes are already a bit tight, this lacing style will make them feel tighter because there’s less "give" than a traditional criss-cross. Ian Fieggen, the guy known as "Professor Shoelace," has documented over 60 ways to lace shoes, and he notes that while straight lacing is aesthetically superior for formal wear, it provides less lateral support for high-impact movement. Don't go play basketball in bar-laced shoes. You’ll roll an ankle.
Common Mistakes That Ruin the Look
Most people finish the lacing and realize the ends are totally different lengths. This happens because the "leap-frog" math is hard to eyeball.
If you finish and the right lace is way longer than the left, you need to feed that slack back through the system. It’s a pain. You have to loosen every bar, one by one, shifting the excess lace toward the bottom and over to the other side.
Another mistake? Crossing over the top. To get the "hidden" look, the lace must always enter the eyelet from the underneath side when it’s moving vertically, and enter from the top side when it’s moving horizontally. If you mix these up, the bars won't look uniform. One will sit higher than the rest. It ruins the symmetry.
The Professional Touch: Tucking the Knot
If you’re going for the ultimate minimalist look—the kind you see in fashion editorials—you don't want a big floppy bow sitting on top of your clean bars.
You can tie the knot behind the tongue.
Warning: this can be uncomfortable. If you tie a standard bow and shove it behind the tongue, it’s going to press against your ankle. Instead, use a "lace anchor" or simply tie a small square knot and tuck the ends into the sides of the shoe. Just make sure the shoes aren't so loose that they slip off. Since straight lacing doesn't "lock" the foot in as well as athletic lacing, the tension of the knot is actually pretty important for keeping your heel from lifting.
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Real World Application: The Oxford vs. The Derby
The "closed lacing" system of an Oxford shoe (where the eyelet tabs are sewn under the vamp) is basically designed for straight lacing. It’s the only way to get those tabs to meet perfectly in the middle.
On a Derby shoe (where the tabs are sewn on top), straight lacing looks a bit more casual but still very intentional. If you're wearing a tuxedo, straight lacing isn't optional; it's the standard. Showing messy criss-crossed laces at a black-tie event is a subtle but real style faux pas.
Actionable Steps to Perfect Your Lacing
Ready to re-thread? Follow this sequence to ensure it looks right the first time:
- Remove everything. Don't try to "fix" your current laces. Pull them all the way out.
- Check for symmetry. Hold the lace ends together to find the midpoint, then thread that through the bottom eyelets.
- The "Under-Over" Rule. Always move the lace vertically on the inside of the eyelet flap. Only move horizontally on the outside.
- Manage Tension. As you complete each bar, pull the laces firm. If you wait until the end to tighten them, the bottom bars will stay loose and look sloppy.
- The Final Tie. Decide if you’re showing the bow or hiding it. If showing it, ensure the final exit of the laces is from the inside out so the bow sits on top of the final bar.
Straight lacing is a small detail. Most people won't consciously notice it. But they will notice that your shoes look "sharper" or more "expensive" without being able to point out why. It’s the definition of understated style.
Take five minutes. Sit down with your favorite pair of boots or oxfords. Re-lacing them is a weirdly meditative process. Once you get the "up, out, across" rhythm down, you’ll never go back to the messy "X" patterns again. It just looks too good.