Sole Survivors

blog post series on bespoke shoemaking

Notes

• London Metropolitan Archives have Peal and Company order books
• have Karl Marx’s order pages
• in 1870s, read-made tailoring and footwear still nascent
• London Labour and the London Poor (1851)
  • more than 28 thousand shoe and boot makers
  • third most popular occupation
• guild distinctions
  • cordwainers make new shoes from new leather
  • cobblers couldn’t work with new leather
  • cordwainers couldn’t work with old footwear

• every London tradesperson came from the working class

• craftspeople were known for being drunk and unruly

• sang pointed songs about customers
• radical views
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Thomas Preston
  • Cato Street Conspiracy
• Daniel Wegan:
  • golden age between 1800s and 1930s

  • found confidence through clothing

  • worked at Gaziano and Girling ten years before going out on his own
  • shoemaking competitions kept standards high, until about 1940s
• “A Gentleman’s Fetish” chapter in 1992 Acquired Taste
• ritualistic measurement
• waiting months

• quietly suggesting that the reader can transform from a country commoner into a city gentleman if he follows these rules and buys those things

• Alexis von Rosenberg, Baron de Redé
  • hundreds of bespoke pairs
  • special room with hidden closets
  • multiples of same style
  • party life
• more information available online now
• story: commissioned from GJ Cleverley
  • marred soles
  • wrinkled uppers
  • saggy waist
  • size or two too large
  • remade, but went badly, agreed to a refund
• problems at other West End firms

• It’s unclear why major firms seem to be flagging.

  • skyrocketing rents
  • halo for ready-to-wear lines

• “These big firms can’t find quality shoemakers because it’s a shit job,” Wegan says plainly.

• after last created, takes 30-35 hours per pair, get paid 350 pounds
• below California minimum wage

• “You can’t pay for rent in London, raise a family, and save for the future on an outworker’s income,” says Wegan.

• contrast small firms run by lastmaker or cutter, run out of home or loft

• The rise of these unglamorous independents has been made possible by an online ecosystem consisting of forums, blogs, and Instagram accounts focused on the finer points of craftsmanship.

• Nicholas Templeman
• Emiko Matsuda
• customers find them via Instagram

• the internet has created a more informed customer

• “shoe mad” enthusiasts

• celebrity endorsements and shallow, romantic accounts of the bespoke process are not enough

• According to Peter Schweiger, Secretary of the West End Bootmakers’ Association, the organization had around fifty registered members when it was founded in 1908. When he joined the association in the mid-1970s, the number had dwindled to about eight. Today, the tally stands at four: John Lobb, GJ Cleverley, W.S. Foster & Son, and James Taylor and Son.

• another bad Cleverley pair story

• Kirby Allison claims that Cleverley intentionally makes shoes that rock back and forth by using a “twisted last,” which I’m sure exists, but I believe the uneven soles are the result of poor craftsmanship.

• enthusiasts becoming more interested in smaller makers
• trunk shoes in standard hotel rooms
• iPhone photos
• Wegan:
  • customers are enthusiasts
  • “These people are coming to see a lastmaker, not a brand. They are coming to see me.”
• Nicholas Templeman’s clientele similar
  • was lastmaker at Lobb’s
  • lastmaking knife little used in larger bespoke houses now
  • works from rough turn
  • other companies start from fine turns
  • analogous to tailor’s block pattern
  • story:
    • friend ordered a pair of shoes
    • loved them
    • wore to a trunk shoe
    • Templeman noticed a small flaw
    • asked to have them back for adjustment

  • The onus to spot problems is commonly placed on the customer.

  • It’s a twisted version of the client-maker relationship.

• to make a living, outworkers must make 3-5 pairs a week
• shortcuts
  • incorrect skiving of toe puffs
  • coarser inseam stitching (1/4″ to 1/2″)
  • “shark’s teeth”: grinning stitches, “teeth” are visible threads

• Everyone I spoke with said they feel added pressure because of their direct relationship with clients.

• hide behind a name

• staying in the backroom

• Wegan: “One of the reasons why someone ends up running a large operation is because they love money, not shoes.”
• Baumol’s cost disease
• prominent West End first may do 600 pairs per year
• smaller shops do 10 to 50
• jockey heel: straight cut across heel breast for stirrups on riding boots

• Younger customers and shoemakers commonly mix and match trendy details, creating a pricey version of Mr. Potato Head.

• Emiko Matsuda worked 20 years in West End

  • “relatively big feet for a Japanese girl”

  • Cordwainer’s College
  • apprenticed at Foster & Son, learned from Terry Peel

• fetishization of the smallest details

• Matsuda: “…my teacher Terry Moore taught me that beveled waists don’t belong on casual shoes because casual shoes need to be flexible, and a fiddleback waist prevents that.”
• estimate fewer than a hundred shoemakers in London today
• William Efe-Laborde
  • wanted bespoke, but couldn’t afford
  • decided to learn to make
  • Jupp tools
  • tool quality worsening over time
  • nine-month course from carréducker in 2014
  • Golding seven-volume set
• sharing

  • relying on the goodwill of his peers, rather than taking an apprenticeship

  • “once you prove that you’re sincere and genuinely dedicated to this craft, others are happy to teach you what they know”

  • bottom makers worked behind a curtain so their colleagues couldn’t see

  • now at risk of fading away
• demographics of customers changing
• old firms didn’t advertise
• by early 1960s, more than 65% English bespoke shoes sent to US
• like art world: old money left, new money came in
• Efe-Laborde: “For that Old Money customer, it would have been obvious if a pair of shoes didn’t meet a certain quality level because they grew up with such goods all their life.”
• firms becoming pseudo-brands
• customer types
  1. enjoys prestige
  2. obsessed with craftsmanship