How to break in a leather shoe without hating your week.Two hours a day for three days. Then forget about them.

A new leather shoe is stiff for the same reason a new leather jacket is: nothing has moved yet. The fix is not thick socks, a hair dryer, or a weekend of suffering. It is two hours a day, indoors, for three days.

Day one, wear them around the house for two hours with the socks you will actually wear. Walk. Sit. Climb the stairs once. Take them off.

Day two, same again. You will feel the vamp start to crease where your foot bends. That crease is supposed to be there; it is the shoe learning your foot.

Day three, wear them to work. If a heel rubs, a strip of moleskin on the heel, not the shoe, for a week. If the width is tight across the ball of the foot after three days, the size is wrong and we will swap it. Returns and exchanges are free either way, so there is no reason to push through pain.

After that, give them a day off between wears. Leather holds moisture from a day on your feet; a day on the floor lets it go.