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talkabout handmade shoes
Words Luke Slattery
In an unassuming UK Midlands town, a handful
of companies are defying the mass-market trend
to produce handcrafted footwear, using skills
passed down through generations.
Newly born from a scroll of plush burgundy
calfskin, a pair of slender Oxfords is moving through
the finishing process at John Lobb in Northampton,
home to England’s fine shoemaking industry. Andrés
Hernández, the firm’s creative director and a Northampton fixture since the early 1960s, shows his pride.
“I don’t come down here very often. But when I do, I’m
amazed, even after all these years, at the transition
from the leather into this three-dimensional object.”
Little more than an hour ago, he had taken a loose
scroll of the same “museum”, or slightly misty, calf
leather from a set of shelves, unrolled it on a bench and
stretched it firmly to reveal what the Italians call the
leather’s pieno fiore (full grain). He was happy to point
out the flaws in the leather scroll – mainly stretchmarks,
although they can include insect bites and barbed-wire
wounds – that remained after the choice sections had
been removed for use. Now, after about 180 of the
reputed 190 steps involved in the process at John Lobb,
a pair of €863 ($1278) shoes has come to life.
When Hernández arrived in Northampton, the East
Midlands town was home to more than 30 shoemaking
companies. The feet of men from all social classes were
once shod in Northampton shoes. But shoemaking in
these parts has been steadily distilled into a boutique
industry – possibly a case of survival of the finest – by
the pressures of globalisation. John Lobb is perhaps
the most prestigious of the surviving clans, which 
Bespoke shoe
in progress at
John Lobb
M ay 2014 Q A N TA S 1 19
include Church’s, Edward Green, Tricker’s, Loake and Crockett &
Jones. In the factories, the styles are English in origin, as are the
accents on the factory floor, but the order forms will most likely bear
the names of stores in Japan, Singapore and Manhattan.
Later, in an office piled high with canary-yellow shoe boxes,
Hernández, who is wearing suede wingtips, expounds his theories
on what, aside from leather and labour, makes a John Lobb shoe.
“We are not into fashion, but we are into style. We are not here today
and gone tomorrow, we are here for the long haul. The essence of our
identity is elegance and you don’t create that identity overnight. You
have a vision and that’s the easy part. The second is to have a plan.
And the third and most difficult part is to maintain that vision.”
The firm’s founder was a Cornish farm boy who, after his
apprenticeship in the mid-19th century, acquired a small fortune on
the Australian goldfields making boots for the miners. He returned
to London to set up shop in 1866. A branch of his family firm opened
in Paris in 1902, and a bespoke operation – a pair of Lobb’s strictly
made-to-measure shoes costs upwards of €5000 ($7410) – is based
at 32 Rue de Mogador, in the smart 9th arrondissement. In 1976, the
company came under French ownership when it was purchased by
Hermès. However, the Lobb family (John Lobb Ltd) retained the
bespoke workshop and store in St James’s Street, London.
Hernández stresses that artisanal traditions still guide the
Northampton ready-to-wear factory, where each pair is handmade
with Goodyear-welted soles – a traditional method that allows for
the sole’s easy replacement – and only about 600 pairs are produced
a week. Without the financial stability of the French, Hernández says
he couldn’t make the kinds of shoes he does to the standard he
expects. The backing from Paris allows him to experiment with
1 20 Q A N TA S M ay 2014
different styles – a new partnership with Paul Smith features a line
of Derby models in cashmere suede, in shades such as spring green
and regal purple – and will, he hopes, allow the firm to grow.
The fact that these shoemakers continue to flourish is a miracle
of industrial ecology. Shoes are no luxury, but a basic need, and
shoemaking, by its nature, is an everyman industry. But in the past
four decades, the focus began to shift from England to Spain, Turkey,
China and India. In Hernández’s view, the decline was self-inflicted.
“There was a time when they tried to become fashionable, to follow
the trend for Italian loafers, and stopped making traditional welted
shoes. In the process, they lost their identity. The best shoemakers
kept to the old British traditions. But what has survived is not shoemaking the way it was. We now have tradition with style, and that
ethos is responsible for the revival of shoemaking in Northampton.”
The industry’s roots are tangled, as is to be expected in a small
town with a singular manufacturing tradition. John Lobb’s current
building was once the factory for Edward Green, founded in 1890;
Edward Green once made shoes for Lobb. Hermès part-owned
Edward Green in the 1990s; it’s now run from a factory a few
kilometres from the town centre. The firm’s distinguished heritage
is revealed by a collection of shoes drawn from its archives outside
the office of Hilary Freeman, who has been at the helm of Edward
Green since the sudden death of her partner, shoe designer John
Hlustik, in 2000. Hlustik bought the company in 1983 for £1 from
an American who had purchased it, in 1977, from the Green family.
He was also responsible for dissolving the Hermès connection.
“John was very talented and charismatic,” says Freeman.
“People across the industry respected him for his passion and
drive. He demanded excellence and he got it.”

andrÉs hernÁndez photography: luke slattery; 1949: getty images
From left: Andrés
Hernández; Northampton
shoemaking in 1949;
John Lobb factory
the fact that
these shoemakers
continue to flourish
is a miracle of
industrial ecology
handmade shoes talkabout
john lobb and
edward green are
northampton
shoemaking royalty
Hlustik was an innovator operating within a strong tradition and
Freeman likes to think that approach still inspires the firm. “Good
heritage businesses don’t revolutionise what they do but, rather,
subtly evolve. In recent years we’ve connected with a new generation
of men. The new man is less bound by convention than a generation
ago and chooses to wear fine shoes not because they are part of his
uniform, but because he appreciates the attention to detail.”
The artisanal-production chain at Edward Green is similar to John
Lobb’s, starting with a clicker who cuts the leather by hand, avoiding
the growth marks and mosquito bites incurred in the animal’s life.
Julie Smart is the closing supervisor, and one of her great pleasures
is the repair of shoes from which the owner has been unable to part.
“You learn a lot about men and their attitude to shoes in this role,”
Smart says. “When I receive the uppers [shoes without the sole]
I start by inspecting their condition. I can tell if they’ve had pets, how
they walk, what kind of socks they wear and if a pair of shoes has
been deeply cherished – bought for a wedding or as an investment.”
John Lobb and Edward Green are Northampton shoemaking
royalty and both stress their design credentials along with their
artisan traditions. But another significant Northampton shoe
manufacturer, Tricker’s, has steered tradition in a different direction.
Founded in Northampton in 1829, its appetite for design innovation is relatively insignificant and finds expression in the use of
coloured leathers or lighter synthetic soles rather than svelte
silhouettes. In the process, however, Tricker’s has managed to outdo
1 2 2 Q A N TA S M ay 2014
its rivals by vaulting to pop-cultural icon status. Its standard roundtoed brogue has proved to be the perfect fashion accompaniment
for turned-up selvedge denim, and its classic tramping boot, which
can fetch inflated prices in the boutiques of Harajuku in Tokyo, or
Berlin’s Mitte, is a coveted streetwear item.
The processes are a little more industrialised, and simplified, at
the Tricker’s factory. Only in the bespoke range of shoes, £1200
($2150) for the first pair, is the leather hand-cut by a clicker. For the
standard range, the leather is pressed out around a pattern. In any
event, as Richard Gammidge, Tricker’s head of new business development, UK sales and PR explains, the bespoke arm at Tricker’s is
usually reserved for customers with uneven feet rather than money
to burn. The firm’s dress shoes have undergone some evolution since
the early 19th century, but the standard brogue, available in many
variations and still the company’s bestseller, has barely changed.
“Traditionally, they were associated with farming and shooting, but
now they’re the height of fashion,” Gammidge says. “Our retailers
are top-end fashion houses.”
Gammidge’s family has been in the industry for three generations.
His grandfather set up a factory making army boots in WWI. “There
were several factories doing the same work in a small hamlet nearby.
If they weren’t bootmakers, they were tanneries or last-makers, or
they supplied soles, stitching and the like. So many components go
into a shoe and the whole industry was in this area.”
Then competition from overseas arrived and, within the space
of a generation, Northampton ceased to be an industrial force.
Fortunately, it remains an artisanal
For airfares and holiday
one. “The shoemakers who are left
packages to the UK Midlands
here now are the crème de la crème,”
call Qantas Holidays on 1300
says Gammidge. “Hopefully, they’ll
735 542 or visit qantas.com/
always be around.”
holidaysaustralianway
edward green factory photography: edward green; 1936: getty images
From left: Edward Green
factory; Cherwell and Downing
shoes by Edward Green; shoes
for Marlene Dietrich, 1936