Bespoke Shoes At Cleverley: Part 2

In the first part of this series, I described the measuring process for having a first pair of bespoke shoes made at GJ Cleverley. The second step, though of course it takes place in the same session, is deciding which material and model of shoe you would like.

Unless a client wants something very extraordinary, the design options are presented around the racks of Cleverley’s ready-to-wear and semi-bespoke shoes. Everything from a whole cut to a toe cap to a wing tip (not to mention casual, monk or derby), with every fraction of brogue in between. Here a quarter brogue is a toe cap with brogueing on almost every seam, but no medallion on the toe. A medallion makes it a half brogue and a wing-tip into a full brogue.

Clients of George Glasgow’s at Cleverley have even requested one or two thistles to be brogued onto the heel of the shoe in the past, in order to make it more individual. But that’s a lot of holes in one shoe.

Most important in designing a brogue is to keep the patterns balanced. Don’t insist on broguing on the vamp and the counters, perhaps with a thistle, yet nothing across the toe.

I already knew I was going with a deep-brown shoe, as I wear that colour more than black and I want these shoes to be as adaptable as possible. My other pair of dark-brown shoes are half brogues, so this design will be cleaner.

I asked Mr Glasgow if he could think of any combination of lines, medallions and brogued seams that have never been commissioned before. (These are bespoke shoes after all.) He looked through the window briefly, as if running each permutation through his head. Then said no.

In the end I went for a clean toe and one brogued seam, running below the laces and finishing at the welt just in the middle of the waist. As you would have on a brogue, but without any decoration at toe or heel. It was the same design as a Cleverley balmoral on display, except with the seam pulled down half way. I’ve never been a fan of balmoral shoes (boots are a different story) – the horizontal line lacks movement to my eye.

Next, the choice of leather. Two bunches “of the brown family” were brought out, including kudu (as a general terrm for deer), hogskin and crocodile, as well as calf in a variety of grains. There were two dark browns, one of them cordovan. While I’ve never had cordovan shoes, Mr Glasgow was against the choice, suggesting that ungrained cordovan can look a little plastic and believing its thickness was more suited to country shoes.

On to soles. How thick do I want the sole? I have no idea – just like I had no idea how long the rise was on my trousers until I had bespoke suits made. Here having models on display is crucial. I pointed and George nodded.

The size of the welt? It can be cut very tight against the upper, leave a little room or be wide enough that it is invisible from a top-view, visible elsewhere. I went for the latter. Apparently people also vary the size of the welt around the shoe, with some preferring it to jut out slightly more at the toe – perhaps to give an impression of length. I skipped that.

Then finally there is the lining. Cleverley has quite a selection of different colours and this strikes me as a nice way to make a bespoke shoe your own, while keeping the outside conservative. I’ve never been a fan of bright suit linings, but then no one will see the inside of your shoes. Except your wife and the airport security guard.

The most popular lining options are red on a black shoe and racing green on a brown. The book was elsewhere so I’ll decide at a later stage. But bright yellow looks good in my head…

Next: the making of the last

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Harvie & Hudson

H&H is one of those fine English outfitters that every chap should have in his back pocket. Perhaps best known for their bespoke shirts which are still cut on the premises, they are the last of the Jermyn Street shirt makers still owned by the founding family. Bold butchers stripes are a trademark, as is the white collar and cuff shirt –which is my preference for something classic and bold.

I’ll confess I have a shirt maker and so haven’t bought either their bespoke or ready to wear shirts. But here is a nice little article by Will on his blog ‘A Suitable Wardrobe’.

Where I find them useful is in supplying everything else, from Covert coats to boxer shorts. And I have to say I love their kit. If you’re looking for no-nonsense old school, classic clothing at a fair price and of good quality they’re the guys. A good example is their lambswool jumpers, a couple of which I bought on Saturday. Under a £100 for two, they’re 2 ply, soft but substantial and made in Scotland. As someone who sports more of a  family-pack than a six-pack one of the things I particularly like about Harvey & Hudson is that their clothing is classic cut, so I don’t have to worry about sizing.

I’m sure that some would be put off by the dowdy exterior and interiors to the shops. It would be fair to say that remodelling hasn’t been high on the agenda. But the staff are approachable and courteous – particularly the old boys – and if  the image of a shop is the sort of thing that matters to you, then you’re free to go to flashier establishments and pay more for a lot less.

That said, after years of inactivity there appears to be movement at H&H, not only have they redesigned the website to give it a fresher look, they have also introduced a line of slim fit shirts to their ready to wear range. I was also interested to learn that they have teamed up with that other Jermyn Street icon, Taylor of Old Bond Street, and begun offering a barbers and grooming service in a new establishment in the City.

Speaking for myself, Jermyn Street really wouldn’t be the same place without them.

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Bespoke Shoes At Cleverley: Part 1

“The time has come, the walrus said,
To talk of many things.
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings.”

No plans yet to write about cabbages. But it is certainly time to talk about bespoke shoes. I set an appointment last week to go see George Glasgow at GJ Cleverley to be measured for my first pair. Rather as I did previously with suiting, expect a series of posts here on every stage of the process.

There’s something rather charming about being measured for shoes. At Cleverley the first stage is to stand on two facing pages of a book, so that your feet can be traced onto the paper. It feels rather odd standing on a book to begin with, but doing so in your socks in The Royal Arcade, while a man such as Mr Glasgow runs a pencil around your toes, is even more peculiar. Still, here stood stars of stage and screen alike – not to mention royalty.

When the shoemaker is tracing your foot the key is to keep the pencil upright. The smallest change in angle will mean a millimetre difference on the last, which can be the difference between comfort and pain.

He will also sweep around your instep, with the pencil at 45 degrees, in order to indicate the height of your arches. Looking back through the Cleverley measuring book, there is a substantial difference here between men. Some, like myself, have almost an inch in difference between the outline and the inside of the arch. (“Healthy and strong,” Mr Glasgow called it. He’s such a tease.) Others have merely a few millimetres. They will require greater support inside the shoe, and the waist will not be able to cut in quite as far underneath.

The length of your foot is also measured. At Cleverley this is done with a wooden rule dating back to 1928. It still looks in pretty good shape – no doubt due to the substantial brass fittings at the joint. While this length is a good guide for the shape of your last, it will always be made 1½ sizes longer than the measurement, to allow for your big toe rolling forward as you put your weight on the ball of your foot.

(As an aside, this difference is only one size on a slip-on shoe. It has no natural mechanism to tighten onto your foot, unless the model includes elastic at the sides, so the fit has to be tighter.)

Next the circumference of various points is measured. First your joints – between the base of your big and little toe. Then just behind the joints, to give an indication of how quickly the foot narrows. Next around your instep – roughly where the top of the laces would be. And finally from that same point on the top of the foot to the back of your heel.

The thing that struck me as these measurements were being taken was their consistentcy. At each point my right foot was 10-and-something inches, while my left was usually 9-and-something. Height just replaces width as you move towards the back of the foot.

It also put into numbers what I already knew, that my right foot is almost a half size smaller than my left, but significantly wider. While the first is very common, the latter together with a narrow heel makes me a good candidate for bespoke.

Finally, Mr Glasgow ran his hands over my ashamedly hot (not to say sweaty) feet. He was looking for any bumps or peculiarities, such as hammer toes, swollen joints (most common on the big and little toes) and spur bones around the heel.

Many of these are caused by men wearing ill-fitting shoes for much of their lives – or shoes that have not properly been worn in or maintained. Mr Glasgow found no such oddities, most likely because I am too young for my feet to have distorted much.

As a final point, some shoemakers insist on measuring a man’s feet at a particular point in the day. Your feet grow in size notably as you walk on them and keep them encased. Cleverly does not consider this significant, not even noting the time the measurements were taken. For Mr Glasgow the natural give of the leather is sufficient to cope with the daily fluctuation.

Next: styles and designs

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Segun Adelaja: A Tailor In An Emporium

Segun Adelaja knows the industry. The day we met we ended up talking for a long time about the expansion of small brands like Berluti, their raw materials and supply chains. About what happens when a small company is bought out and how you manage quality in the midst of rapid expansion. His shoes are made by an ex-Berluti maker, so perhaps there is some bias there, but he freely admits to owning pairs himself – indeed to owning almost every brand of shoes.

It’s hard to stop talking to Segun (She-gun), actually.

And I suppose that theme runs though his shop and his products. He’s tucked away at the back of the Quadrant Arcade (off Regent Street), his shop is unpretentious – not to say sparse – and his website hasn’t been updated in quite a while. There’s nothing wrong with it, but the press articles are from 2002 and still reflect the time when he was more of a visiting tailor and shirtmaker. The Collections section has been “coming soon” for a long time.

Segun is more about word of mouth. Not that he’s understated in person, but such is the community of Nigerian (his native land), English and other customers from across Europe that he has never really explored marketing or the internet.

Although his origins are as a visiting tailor, today Segun is more of a host to an severely edited emporium. He is the only outlet for Lorenzo Villoresi (of Florence) fragrances in the UK. He is one of very few places that stock Gallo socks (Edward Green sometimes carries a couple of pairs). And he commissions his own designs in large holdalls from Swaine Adeney & Brigg.

Shirts, trousers and jackets, on the other hand, are made to his own designs in Italy. And I have to say it was the made-to-order nature of the trousers that grabbed my attention. They are beautifully made, with hand-sewn trouser curtain and notched waistband, as well as nice design touches like side straps in a variety of colours, widths and materials.

But most importantly, they are all adjusted free of charge. You can have the seat smaller or bigger, change the rise, alter the waist or the hips, as well as adjusting either the length or width of the legs. The legs are made deliberately wide so they can be taken in – I had mine adjusted from 28cm to 22cm across the bottom.

Segun has the eye of the tailor still, explaining to me how he thinks it necessary to lower the rise if a man has a large belly, or raise it if he has a large bum. And with the mind of a tailor it just seems unacceptable that someone would walk out with trousers that don’t fit him. The price, around £180, doesn’t change no matter what you want. Even ordering an entirely custom pair isn’t much more.

I was never sure where to get trousers before. It seems extravagant to have my tailor make them – the figuration is not difficult. But ready-to-wear trousers are too far the other way, never really fitting. This seems like a nice compromise.

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Dover Street Market

If last week’s recommendation, Albam, is the best of modern Britain then the Dover Street Market is the worst. Everything most awful is here; a belief that ‘new’ is a substitute for ‘better’; that manners and common courtesy are old fashioned and the concerns of others; the delusion that celebrity and fame make up for quality, and a willingness to pay vast sums to foreigners for what amounts to our own damn heritage. Add in a liberal application of ‘Hoxton Twat’ (follow the link for a definition) and that pretty much sums up Dover Street Market.

The shop is what might be referred to as a ‘concept store’. Applying the word ‘concept‘ to anything should be viewed with suspicion in my view. After all, global thermo nuclear war is a concept, it’s just a really, really bad one.

In this case, the ‘concept’ is to create a shop with the variety and unstructured, rough nature of a street market. To that end concrete floors, metal banisters and steel frames for hanging clothing seem to be the main accoutrements for achieving this.

I’d read so much painted prose about this place that I was keen to check it out. In addition, it’s the only stockist in London carrying a Mark McNairy shoe, the subject of a recent post, and I wanted to have a look before buying online.

To begin with, spread over several floors you have no idea where you’re going. Nothing is labelled.  There are no signs and no staff members willing to halt their conversions with one another long enough to offer assistance. I made for a stair case in the hope that it might lead somewhere. There I encountered a couple who were watching my movements as closely as I watched theirs; each of us hoping that the other might make some knowing move which would signify where to go. Spying some clothes I dashed through a doorway and found two assistants, who were merrily ignoring members of the public. Asking where I might find Inventory clothing I was treated to an up and down glance before the female assistant contemptuously spat out the word “basement”.

As I trudged back down through the shop, confident that at any moment I might find myself in the ladies toilet, I saw shop assistant after shop assistant ignoring customers to lounge around pretentiously while talking to their colleagues. Not once did anybody say hello, good afternoon or even acknowledge my presence, nor anybody else’s for that matter. I thought Hilditch and Key was the least hospitable shop in London, I was evidently wrong.

As to the stock, we’re talking the latest in street wear, new ivy and American work wear. This genre is something I take an interest in, and it was good to finally see items from Inventory, Junya Watanabe and S.N.S Herning. But for the most part it was over priced tat of indifferent quality masquerading as classics with a twist.

Having had enough I quickly left with a desire never to return. If it were a dining experience it would be a public bin with a French maître d and Gordon Ramsey hurling abuse at you from a darkened doorway.

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