The Allure of Corthay Shoes

Pierre Corthay is one of the best shoemakers around, but is not well-known outside France. Trained at both John Lobb and Berluti, he has a pedigree from possibly the two most respected shoemakers in the world, for quality and design respectively.

Like Berluti, he has used some innovative marketing and eye-catching designs to gain attention across France. And he has gradually acquired stockists in Japan, Germany and the USA (Leffot and Bergdorf Goodman). If he were owned by the giant LVMH, he’d probably be as big as Berluti already.

I like Corthay shoes because they are sleek without being pointy (cf. Artioli), have a lovely patina without being over the top (cf. Berluti), and are universally renowned to have great construction (again, cf. Berluti).

I wore my pair, probably inadvisably, in torrential rain in London recently. They coped very well, without a stain on them and no signs of damage. In fact, come to think of it, they had had a few spots of rain on a previous occasion and there were no marks that time either.

I hasten to add that on neither occasion did I submit the shoes to this treatment on purpose. But as an assistant in the Gaziano & Girling showroom told me that day, “you wouldn’t want to be wearing a pair of Berlutis on a day like this.”

A look at the website (www.corthay.fr) illustrates the Corthay taste for the extreme. Neon-orange leathers and turquoise two-tones are always going to stand out from the crowd. But I am informed that 90% of the shoes they sell are still black or brown.

What blacks and browns though. Highlights are the two-holed derbies with elongated tongue, which look great in smart and clean shades, and the suede-and-calf combinations – a modern take on the traditional business model. I opted for a brown version of the black two-tones illustrated (colour shown in the magnified image).

Having trained at Lobb in 1984 and become the senior craftsman at Berluti in 1985, Corthay opened his own store in 1990. Five years later a contract for 150 bespoke pairs from the Sultan of Brunei kick-started the business, which added a ready-to-wear in 2001. A tricky experience with a subcontractor led the company to start doing its own ready-to-wear and opening its own factory in 2003.

Today, Corthay probably competes with Aubercy for the reputation of the best-respected shoemaker in France. I highly recommend a look next time you are in New York (Leffot, Bergdorf Goodman) or, indeed, are strolling down Rue Volney in Paris.

Make Berluti Your Fifth Pair. Part 2: Design

This is the continuation of a debate begun in a previous posting. To see that post, click here.

There are two important points to note about these commentators, though. The first concedes that he wears his Berluti shoes relatively rarely, as shoes for a special occasion and generally for evening wear. They are therefore not on a heavy rotation and rarely receive a full day’s use. He admits they are a little delicate, as many fine things are, and should be treated as such.

This suggests to me that while Berluti makes a fine pair of shoes, they should not be the second or third pair you buy. Get the basics first, your essential black oxfords and chocolate derbys – the shoes you will wear to work, the shoes you will wear more than once a week.

Then consider Berluti as something special. For you this may mean they are your fifth pair of high-end shoes. For these commentators I rather suspect they are their ninth or twelfth.

The second point is that the more critical Berluti customer still owns a pair, and without regret. Despite his reservations about the quality of the construction, he is happy he bought a pair and would do so again. This is true of almost all detractors of Berluti that I have seen: they still love the pair they own.

This reinforces the impression of Berluti as an exception, a treat. No matter how many great pairs of solidly-built English shoes you own, a little bit of moon-painted frippery will get you eventually (Berluti famously claims that the patinas on some of its shoes are painted by the light of the moon, enhancing their effect. Rubbish, of course, but it all adds to their frankly very successful PR mythology.)

The second point also shows that there is more than one way to judge a pair of shoes. Edward Green and John Lobb are generally considered to be among the best-constructed shoes available. But some of the designs leave me a little cold. I own a pair of Oundle monk-fronts on the 888 last from Edward Green – a long look with a chiselled toe. But the more conservative lasts, such as 202, just seem stumpy to my eye. The same comment has been made about some Vass shoes – they are wonderfully made but you’d never want to put them on your feet.

At some point, you pay for design. With Berluti, this is a large portion of what you pay for. Some of the designs are just horrible (Rapieces-Reprises) and some are gorgeous (Piercing). But Olga is famed for pushing the envelope on design, with new shapes, engraving, personalised tattoos and chunky rubber soles. Many of her innovations, like the brogueing on wholecuts, have now been copied by several other designers.

In conclusion, buy Berluti as an extravagance and buy it for its design. They’re well-made (I don’t believe the rumours about basic construction being done in China today) but they won’t hold up too well after several trips to the pub, or after a few English winters of cold slushy rain.

I’m more a fan of Pierre Corthay these days. But more of that in the next posting.

Make Berluti Your Fifth Pair. Part 1: Construction

Many people a sartorial bent idolise Berluti shoes. And well they may. Olga Berluti designs beautiful footwear that stands out for its sleek lines and subtle patinas. But there are many questions over the quality of its construction.

Let’s start with the certainties. Berluti shoes, like many made in Italy (they are constructed in the Stefano Bi factory outside Ferrara, though designed in France), are Blake constructed. This means that the shoe’s upper is folded underneath itself and sewn directly onto the sole of the shoe, unlike Goodyear welts which involve sewing the upper onto a new ridge of leather, before attaching that to the sole.

Most English shoes and their American heirs (Alden, Allen Edmonds) use Goodyear welts. They make the shoe more water resistant and tougher. They also make it easier and quicker to resole the shoe. So Berluti shoes are less likely to stand up to rain and general dampness.

They can be resoled, but it requires a Blake-specific machine. Cobblers that use these can be hard to find, but then if you’re going to pay Berluti prices for shoes you should really send them back to the manufacturer to get resoled and rebuilt to maximise their longevity.

The advantage of Blake construction is that the sole can be cut a lot closer to the upper, leaving less of a lip and making the design sleeker. The width of a sole around the upper varies hugely among Goodyear-welted shoes, but none are quite as thin as Blake-made models.

Blake shoes are not necessarily of inferior quality. Although the technique was originally created to make it easier to produce shoes in a factory, and some very poorly made Blake shoes are churned out in Italy, the top quality lines are expertly made.

But they are more delicate. Quite how delicate Berluti shoes are is a matter of some debate. Some say they have worn them for years without any major problems. Others report that they wrinkled badly and did not hold up well to continued use.

In an online forum intended to discuss such matters, one Berluti enthusiast said “I have been a customer since 1998. I believe their shoes are very well made, there are a couple of pairs I have worn for a long time and they are holding up beautifully.”

A more critical customer pointed out: “One issue with Berluti ready-to-wear is the use of Venezia leather. According to Berluti PR, this leather allows for the beautiful patina available on Berluti shoes. Unfortunately, it is also quite thin and delicate, which means that they can look very wrinkled after some wear.”

The conclusion to this debate will appear here later in the week…

Anyone Know a Good Cobbler?

I was having a set of keys cut in a local cobbler yesterday and couldn’t take my eyes off the guy resoling shoes. He banged in the nails on the new shoe with abandon, filed off the edges of the leather while barely looking at it and then threw (yes, threw) the completed shoe onto the shelf above him.

It landed on a mound of similarly maltreated shoes, a few ladies’ heels sticking out from between a dozen black brogues. It looked like a mound of stricken corpses. You could almost hear the pain inflicted by his whining machinery.

These high-street cobblers barely deserve the name. (They certainly are nothing close to cordwainers – the old English term for makers of shoes.) But then what should you expect from someone who is equally adept at cutting keys, dry cleaning and resoling?

But there aren’t many other options. If you want a good pair of shoes resoling or reconstructing, your only choice is a high-street butcher or the original manufacturer. And the latter is likely to be prohibitively expensive – possibly involving the shipping of the shoes to France or Italy (it’s even worse for US readers, who might have to send them to Northampton as well).

This service is undoubtedly worth it if you want the shoes reconstructing, with new welts and linings etc. But it’s a little excessive just for a new sole.

I asked Steven Taffel of Leffot in New York for advice on this but without any luck. Apparently the problem is similar in the US – nothing in the middle ground.

Steven suggested I try Dean Girling (of Gaziano & Girling) to ask his advice. Dean’s best suggestion was to send them to his team, one of whom would be happy to reconstruct a shoe. This is useful and more local, but doesn’t really solve the problem.

“The problem is there just aren’t any high-quality cobblers out there any more,” said Dean. “My father still does a lot of that work but he’s in his sixties now and has more work than he can handle. It seems there isn’t the volume of retail demand for high-quality work.”

So this is a request for recommendations from the readership. There must be some good cobblers out there that I can feel confident giving my JM Westons to for a new heel. It doesn’t matter where you live, any recommendations would be gladly received.

[I also need to find somewhere that sells tongue pads that you stick to the bottom of the shoe’s tongue – it helps tighten the top of the shoe when the leather has expanded over time.]

The Split Yoke

There is almost no good journalism about men’s style these days. Outside of this and a few other websites, no-one produces objective, informed and above all critical writing about clothes, brands and products.

I flicked through a magazine called Man About Town last week (a recent launch in the high-end fashion sector, only on its second issue) and found 20 pages about the business of fashion. Should be interesting, except that it comprised several double-page spreads on brands including Dunhill and Church’s, merely describing their luscious interiors, history of craftsmanship and key pieces.

Not one critical or substantive word about what differentiated this business, about how it communicates its value for money, or about different times and designers have changed what it does. Nothing on what its detractors say about it; or on how much water those detractions hold.

Each piece read like an advert. Which perhaps isn’t surprising, given that those companies advertise in the magazine. But this is what journalism is built on – the integrity that allows you to write fairly and objectively, if critically, about those that fund the magazine itself.

Another example this week piled ignorance onto paucity of journalism. The column Brummell in UK newspaper Financial News recommended a bespoke shirt service called Brass Bones, where you can get shirts made to your size by filling in a form online. Nothing wrong with that; it’s a good idea.

But there’s no journalism here. They haven’t tried the service or cast anything like a critical eye over it. There are several online shirt services that have been around for months, even years, yet they don’t get a mention – let alone a comparison. This service is presented as a one-off.

Such is the presentation of the piece, just like the examples in Man About Town, that it could be mistaken for an advert.

But the worst thing is ignorance about the product they are describing. Aside from a rather casual use of the word ‘bespoke’ (see previous post on Sartoriani), the boys at Brummell insightfully point out that the shirts have desirable details such as mother-of-pearl buttons, gussets and split yokes.

Mother-of-pearl is standard. If they didn’t have that you should send them back. The value of gussets is debateable. But split yokes are the worst. They are an anachronism.

Split yokes used to be a sign of quality because it showed that your tailor regularly adjusted his shirts, altering the length of each side of the yoke to fit the individual customer. This is unlikely to be the case today.

In fact, you could argue that having a yoke that is one piece demonstrates quality, as a bespoke shirt by definition doesn’t need to be split and adjusted. Either way, listing it as a feature hardly demonstrates incisive criticism.

I’d bet a decent sum of money the writers of that piece just copied the list from a Brass Bones press release, with little thought for what it meant. Oh well.