Today's Shoes

Day

Cleverley side-elastic shoe with hand-stitched apron seam in burgundy calf. These shoes have inlaid steel tips on the toes. I tend to wear the toes of my soles down very quickly, and resoling bespoke shoes costs more than every single pair of shoes that Ben Brumfield has ever owned put together. The steel tips are a good way to extend the lives of the soles. The problem is that it sounds like I'm tap-dancing whenever I walk on hard floors in them.

Evening

John Lobb Paris Venetian loafer in dark brown calf (Chester model, 6000 last).

Today's Shoes

John Lobb unlined Venetian loafers in dark oak calf (Chester model, 6000 last). The shoes pictured above are the same model, but they're in a lighter color than my shoes.

Today's Shoes

Day

Edward Green bespoke bals in dark brown calf. The dominant feature of these shoes is that the U-throat, the diamond-cap, and the counter are all done with the pie crust-style hand-sewing that typifies the Edward Green Dover. Edward Green's bespoke program is now defunct since their lastmaker, Tony Gaziano, left to found Gaziano & Girling with Dean Girling, who is one of the best bespoke makers around. Tony designed these shoes based on an idea of mine, Tony made the last for them, and Dean made them. After they want out on their own, Tony asked permission to photograph them with G&G trees for display on the G&G website; and I readily agreed. He liked the design well enough that a rendition of it called the Gable is included in his RTW line.

I'm really proud of this design. It all started with a Sutor Mantellassi shoe that I saw a picture of. The shoe was a wholecut with twin-needle stitching forming a standard cap-toe design. I thought that it would look good with a wing-cap and a U throat, and I asked if Gravati could do it. They said that they could not. I asked Ron Rider if Martegani could do it. He said yes, and a few months later I got my hot little hands on the finished shoes. I liked the result so much that I decided to get a bespoke rendition of it. One of Tony's design signatures is the diamond tip, so I decided to replace the wing-cap with a diamond-cap. I also thought that the Dover-style pie crust-style would be more elegant. I think the results are spectacular. But I'm hardly objective.

Evening

John Lobb Paris Venetian loafers in dark brown calf (Chester model, 6000 last).