Review: Broadland Slippers

I did rather well this Christmas as far as gifts went. But then writing a blog does have its advantages, people have a fair idea of what to buy you.

Top of the pile was a pair of dress pumps with flat grosgrain bows from UK based Broadland Slippers, which came courtesy of my girlfriend Westie. These are an acquired taste, but as the name implies Broadland’s speciality are beautiful velvet slippers and house shoes, ranging in design from the simple to the decadent. A subject we covered at length some time ago.

I returned home to Norfolk this Christmas, and by a curious quirk this happens to be the home of Broadland Slippers. An unlikely location for such a company; think English shoemaking, think Northampton. However, Norwich was once the home of the BALLY shoe factory, until production was moved to Eastern Europe in the 1990s. But it’s nice to know that the craft was not entirely lost. All Broadland’s products are hand made here in England and they’re made to order, so expect a 4 to 5 week wait for your order.

My girlfriend wanted my pumps in time for Christmas and so rang the company to try and clarify that they’d be ready for the big day. Her report was that the guys at Broadland were extremely helpful and even talked her through sizing and design – of which she was a little unsure.

I have to say that the pumps are beautiful, as good as any I’ve seen, so no worries on that score. The quilted silk interior is soft and substantial, which helps keep the pump on your foot if you’re planning on tripping the light fantastic.  What’s more they’re extremely well priced.

Unfortunately, the natural sizing of the last seems to be a little on the narrow side, and in my case a half size too short. Having a quick scan of the forums this seems to be a common issue. I’m normally a straight ten, and when the guys at Broadland spoke to my girlfriend they didn’t indicate there would be a problem. I have a suspicion that the thickness of the interior quilting also contributes to them being a bit on the narrow side.

So, despite the effort to get them to me in time for Christmas mine will be going back, but this hasn’t proved a problem. I’ve been in contact with the company and without quibble they asked me to send the pumps back and asked for a measurement of my foot for safety’s sake.

I can’t really fault the product or the customer service. If I had one complaint it would be that while boxed the pumps aren’t in shoe bags – which would prevent scuffing in transit- and the box ought to be bubble wrapped, again an insurance against damage in transit. That aside, I have to say I was extremely impresses. Delivery is free in the UK and only £15 extra World wide. A company well worth adding to your internet favourites.

Style Library [Part 2]

Last week I shared a list of my favorite style books. Following is a list of style books in my library that were not worth the money.

Esquire: The Big Black Book. These annuals are really more magazine than a book. I have the same problem with these annuals that I have with Esquire magazine; they are heavy on ads for trendy clothing and light on good advice. It’s a shame that the current magazine isn’t more like the Esquire of eighty years ago.

The Handbook of Style: A Man’s Guide to Looking Good, The Editors of Esquire Magazine (2009). This little book from Esquire magazine is a lot more useful than the big black books, but it does not offer anything unique that isn’t already presented elsewhere in more interesting fashion.

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Fab 5’s Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better and Living Better, Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Filicia, Carson Kressley, and Jai Rodriguez (2004). Carson Kressley’s fashion advice is dubious at best: “Black flip-flops look chic with almost everything, and you can wear them all summer long. I once sported a $3.50 pair with a couture suit. On CNN, no less.”

The Indispensable Guide to Classic Men’s Clothing, Josh Karlen & Christopher Sulavik (1999). Unlike some of the books in my list from last week, I have not found this book to be “indispensable.” It is just a wall of text with a few black line illustrations.

I’ll conclude with one book that is on my wish list. Woody Hochswender’s Men in Style: The Golden Age of Fashion from Esquire (1993) is a reference book of illustrations and editorial copy from Esquire magazines of the 1930s to the 1950s. Unfortunately the book is out of print and has become highly collectible. Nice copies fetch about three hundred fifty dollars. Even at that price, it’s the only book on this list that is worth the money.

Style Library [Part 1]

Over the years I have collected a number of books on men’s style. Following is a list of some of my favorites (in no particular order).

Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion, Alan Flusser (2002). This 305 page tome is one of my all-time favorites. It is full of photographs and old Esquire illustrations. Flusser covers the full spectrum of men’s style. The book includes chapters on color, proportion, and pattern. Each category of men’s clothing has a chapter including ones on suits, odd jackets, trousers and waistcoats, dress shirts, neckwear, socks, shoes, accessories, formal wear and business casual.

Style & the Man, Alan Flusser (2010). This book was updated in 2010. It is essentially a small watered-down version of Dressing the Man without the great pictures and illustrations. Flusser packs a lot of information into 137 pages, but I still prefer Dressing the Man.

Eminently Suitable: The Elements of Style in Business Attire, G. Bruce Boyer (1990). In this book Boyer dispenses history and advice on dressing for business. Although this book is over 20 years old, the content is still relevant today.

The London Cut: Savile Row Besoke Tailoring, James Sherwood (2007). An investigation into the houses on Savile Row. The book includes a nice collection of images of famous men and women in their Savile Row tailored clothing.

Men’s Wardrobe, Kim Johnson Gross, Jeff Stone & Woody Hochswender (2000). This book does a great job of showing how to put together different outfits using a few core articles of clothing. For instance, one photo spread shows three different outfits built around a stone-colored cotton suit. In the first photo the suit is coupled with a blue dress shirt, bow tie, and London tan shoes, belt and briefcase. For golfing with a client, the suit pants are paired with a yellow polo shirt, golf shoes and a hat. For casual Friday, the suit jacket is paired with dark blue jeans, a white t-shirt, tennis shoes and a canvas messenger bag.

Gentleman: A Timeless Fashion, Bernhard Roetzel (1999). This big book is full of good information and lots of nice pictures. This is probably my second favorite book behind Dressing the Man.

Dressing in the Dark: Lessons in Men’s Style from the Movies, Marion Maneker (2002). This book is light on style advice, but contains a wealth of photos of film celebrities in various states of dress.

Sharp Suits, Eric Musgrave (2009). I wish this book had more classic style images, and fewer of rock stars in outlandish suits. Nevertheless, the book has enough valuable content to make it worthwhile.

The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style, Nicholas Antongiavanni (2006). Michael Anton, writing under his Italian pseudonym, offers one of the most unique books on men’s style. Anton’s book is a parody of Machiavelli’s The Prince. But instead of being a book on how to rule, The Suit is a book on how to dress.

If I have failed to list one of your favorite style books, please post in the comments. I might have to add it to my library. Next week I’ll share a list of books in my library that were not worth the money.

A Morning At Carreducker

Happy New Year to all. I thought for my first contribution of 2011 I would share an interview I conducted back in November while in London. James Ducker, half of the dynamic duo that make ups Carréducker shoes, was kind enough to meet with me in his Cockpit Yard studio in Bloomsbury to talk bespoke footwear.

James ended up making shoes almost by accident. After university, James wanted to go to South America, but his mother luckily convinced him to try Spain first. While spending some time there teaching English, he discovered that a father of a student of his worked as a shoemaker, and he enrolled in a class in Barcelona. When the course was over, James kept making shoes as a hobby. Evidently he was no slouch, and upon returning to England was received into a coveted apprenticeship at John Lobb. This is where he met Deborah Carré, and the seeds for Carréducker were sown.

In 2004 the duo launched the mutually eponymous brand, diving head first into the London bespoke shoe scene. With names like Cleverley and Lobb down the road, the pair knew they would need to do something innovative and different if they wanted to make it. The craft of shoe-making is and old and traditional one, but Deborah and James wanted to respect this storied past while injecting it with a heavier dose of design and modernism. Wild bragging, contrast piping, and crazy colored skins are just a few of the options they offer, but really the only limits are the imagination.

The key to Carréducker’s success though seems to me to be the intimacy of the process. They make less than a hundred pairs of shoes a year, and when you order a pair, you know it will be James and Deborah doing most of the work themselves. When I asked James about expanding the business, he told me “I would never want to stop making. This is what I love. I love making shoes. I can’t imagine not doing it.” This connection between artisan and consumer is one of the most distinct facets of bespoke anything. “You have to respond to it, change it, and you’re involved in it,” James told me. “Bespoke, under whatever guise it takes, is more about buying into a process than a product,” and just as any house on Savile Row, “we insist on fittings, because it’s not really a bespoke product if it doesn’t fit you perfectly.” You can be sure that when your shoes are delivered, James and Deborah are almost sad to see them go.

After his time at Lobb, James spent some time teaching shoe-making at Cordwainer’s College and the London College of Fashion, and he and Deborah got the idea to start their very own Carréducker shoe course a number of years ago. Now they hold three courses a year, two in London and one in New York, teaching about eight students per session.

Image credit: gievesandhawkes.com
Carréducker’s latest endeavor is a partnership with Gieves & Hawkes at No.1 & 2 Savile Row. “We’re behind a glass partition in the shoe department, and you can just about see us from Vigo Street. I think we’re going to provide a bit of theatre because you can actually watch us making.” Unlike the tailors, who do most of their work in basements out of sight, you can actually walk right up to the glass pane and watch Deborah and James at work.

You can tell from the moment you meet him that James is someone passionate about what he does, and for me, this passion is one of the joys of real artisan-made goods. It’s not just about “buying into a process” as James said, but but also about buying into people. Carréducker have lots of new and exciting things coming up that I’m not allowed to tell you about quite yet, but keep an eye out. I think we’ll all be seeing a lot more of Deborah and James in 2011.

PS - Mr. Andrew Williams wrote a piece about some of Carréducker’s offerings last April, which you can still find here.

Interview: Adrian Herring Of Herring Shoes

Funny what results from a bet over a dish of fried seaweed; it certainly was in Adrian Herring’s case.

Adrian is the man behind Herring Shoes, an online retailer selling some of Northamptonshire’s best known shoemaking brands, including Trickers, Church’s, Cheaney and Loake. In doing so he’s acquired some interesting customers, from Leonardo Dicaprio and business guru Theo Paphitis to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Bath Rugby Team.

What makes this retailer different from the others out there is that they also produce their own shoes, made by those same excellent manufacturers. Offering excellent value and coming in three ranges: Premier, Classic and Graduate, they’re a cut above what’s commonly available on the market.

I decided it was high time I found out a little more about Herring Shoes; so a few weeks ago I gave Adrian Herring a call.

Oh, and the seaweed? I’ll explain that as well.

Today Herring supplies shoes to customers all over the world, but success wasn’t always on the cards for young Adrian.

With typical honesty Adrian confessed to being a bit of a “misfit” in his early years. Describing himself as “a wheeler dealer” he walked out of his private school with the high aim of selling juke boxes. As one might expect Adrian’s father was less than pleased at this prospect and set about convincing a reluctant Adrian to come work for him in the family shoe shop.

Despite this change of tack Adrian had no intention of dedicating his life to shoes. But fate was to lend a hand. One day the Loake sales rep visited the shop armed with a pair of shoes in “beautiful Burgundy leather”. Adrian instantly spotted these, but his father, convinced they wouldn’t sell, said “no”. He eventually acquiesced, with the parting shot: “that’s your shoe”.  It became a best seller and six months later Adrian was doing all firms buying.

Something I was keen to find out was why they started designing their own shoes.

Talking to Adrian it’s clear this is the bit of the business for which he has most passion. My favourites amongst the Herring range are the imaginative multiple textured and two tone shoes, for which Adrian has a particular flair and interest.

Oddly, it all started around the table in a Chinese restaurant with a wager over a dish of deep fried seaweed, or rather as Adrian thought fried cabbage. His father bet 25 pairs of any shoe Adrian cared to design that it was indeed seaweed. Adrian won his bet and designed a burgundy toe cap with black grain, which they named Seaweed.

What marks Herring’s own shoes out in my view is their exceptional quality and value, whichever range you opt for.

This side of things started when Adrian realised an opportunity to buy the excess leather from shoemaker Loake. At that time the company made shoes for the likes of Harrods and other high end stores. But they always had excess leather left over, which they were naturally keen to sell. For Adrian it was an opportunity to buy higher quality leather cheaply and with it produce shoes of a better grade for a lower price. Today creating their own shoes also allows Adrian to control both the price and the quality. For example, the lining in their shoes is leather and not cotton, as it is with some brands. Likewise, they use leather insoles where many companies use Texon, a substance similar to cardboard. Adrian helpfully explained how you test whether your shoes have leather insoles or Texon; “lick your finger and touch the insole of your shoe where the ball of the foot rests. If it leaves a dark mark then the sole has absorbed the moisture and it’s leather”.  Most of the leather for their own brand shoes comes from Europe, but they’re starting to source oak bark leather from Devon. He also has some interesting projects in the pipeline; most notably a collaboration with Cheaney to produce a spectator incorporating genuine Harris Tweed. We can also look forward to a range of luggage complete with broguing to complement their Premier collection.

We discussed Adrian’s father quite a bit during the course of our chat, a man for whom he obviously has the greatest respect; “I always maintained the things learned from father”, he told me.  But his father never went easy on him. It was on his insistence that Adrian was sent off to the Barker factory, where he learned to make shoes under the late William Barker. In fact he still owns the shoes he made then, and learned everything from clicking to cutting.

It was also through working with his father that Adrian learned about customer service. The internet doesn’t allow much in the way of customer interaction or personal service, but wherever possible Adrian tries to apply those same personal touches learned in the family shop, even going do far as to handle customer queries himself. But it’s the little things that make great customer service. This isn’t something advertised on the website, but when you buy a pair of Herring shoes  each one is polished by hand, boxed in dustcovers and supplied with shoe horn and a tin of polish to properly care for them.  All these things are indicative of the passion which Adrian has for what he does and how he does it.

I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with Adrian, of which these are the edited highlights. I was left with the definite impression that here was a stand up guy, and a real character with a genuine love for the business he’s in.