What we make

Shoes

The one thing men economize on that everybody notices.

A suit cut to your measure, worn over shoes bought off a rack in a size that was close enough. It happens constantly, and it undoes half the work. Shoes are the last thing most men buy properly and the first thing other men look at.

Your last, not a size.

A size is a length. A last is a shape — length, width, instep, heel. Two men wearing the same number have differently shaped feet, and one of them is uncomfortable by four o'clock. Made to order means the shoe is built on a shape that matches yours.

Seven of these are welted.

Welted construction stitches the upper to the sole through a strip of leather, so the sole can be replaced without touching the shoe. A good pair is resoled three or four times, which makes it less an expense than a very slow subscription. The other five — the two slippers, the penny loafer, the chukka and the driver — are built to be soft rather than eternal, and that is the right decision for what they are. The spec under each shoe says which is which.

Chosen the same way as cloth.

Leather, last, sole and the details — cap or plain, closed lacing or open, edge dressed dark or natural. You will be told which we would make and why, exactly as with a jacket.

With black tie

One right answer, and one that is more fun.

The Black Oxford

Black box calf · whole cut · Goodyear welted · leather sole, rubber tread

$425

Made in about a week

One piece of leather over the whole upper — no seams to catch the light, which is the entire point of black tie. There is no second correct answer.

If not this oneThere are no other colors. A whole cut in cognac or burgundy is a beautiful shoe and a very good thing to wear to lunch; with black tie it is a mistake made in excellent taste. Black, or wear something else.

The Evening Slipper

Black suede · calf saddle · slipper construction, leather sole

$345

Made in about four weeks

The one liberty black tie allows. Black suede, a plain calf saddle across the vamp, and a sole thin enough to feel the floor through. For a dinner at home, a club, or the second half of an evening. Same trousers, and nobody will think you have given up.

If not this oneVelvet is the traditional answer and it photographs beautifully exactly once. Suede is the one still in the rotation in five years. If you want the flourish, take it in the sock.

With a suit

Four that will carry every suit you own.

Dark Brown Cap Toe

Dark brown box calf · cap toe · Goodyear welted, leather sole

$425

Made in about a week

If you buy one pair of shoes in your life, this is the pair. Navy suit, gray suit, odd trousers — it does not care.

If not this oneBlack is the obvious alternative and the less useful one: it does a single job, and the whole cut above already does that job better. If you want a second pair, make it cognac and keep it for the gray suit.

Oxblood Oxford

Burgundy box calf · cap toe · Goodyear welted · leather sole, rubber tread

$425

Made in about a week

The one permitted flourish with a business suit. Box calf rather than a painted finish, which is why it reads as deep wine under a light instead of turning orange in a photograph — and why it darkens with polishing rather than fading.

If not this oneCognac is the obvious alternative and it is the one that goes orange on you in five years. Burgundy is the color that gets deeper. It is the only shoe on this page that will look better in 2035 than it does now.

Black Single Monk

Black box calf · wingtip · silver buckle · Goodyear welted, leather sole

$425

Made in about a week

A monk is an oxford that decided against laces. The wingtip keeps it from being solemn, the single strap keeps it from showing off, and the buckle is silver rather than gilt — which is most of the difference between a shoe and a statement.

If not this oneDark brown is the version you will actually wear more often. Black is the version that carries a funeral and a board meeting in the same week, which is a duller argument and usually the winning one.

Brown Double Monk

Dark brown box calf · cap toe · Goodyear welted · leather sole, rubber tread · raised heel

$425

Made in about a week

Louder than the single, and deliberately so — two straps, a little more heel, and no laces to hide behind. This is the shoe that says you chose it. Best under a suit you already know fits.

If not this oneBlack double monks are a category error: the shape is already talking, so the color should not. Cognac if you want it warmer, burgundy if you have made peace with being looked at.

With an odd jacket

Where you are allowed to enjoy yourself.

The Bit Loafer

Med brown box calf · gilt bit · Goodyear welted, leather sole

$425

Made in about four weeks

Half a century of men have worn this with a blazer and gray trousers and none of them looked wrong. Slightly rakish, entirely correct.

If not this oneBlack with a gilt bit is a Wall Street shoe and it knows it. Brown is friendlier, sits better against gray flannel, and does not date. If you already own the black pair, this is the one to add. If you own neither, start here.

The Chelsea

Dark brown box calf · Goodyear welted, leather sole

$450

Made in about a week

A riding boot that learned manners — elastic where the lacing used to be, cut at the ankle so it vanishes under a trouser. Under flannel trousers with a tweed jacket it is the most useful thing you can own from November to March, and it is the only boot here we would put under a suit.

If not this oneBlack is a nightclub boot and suede is a Sunday one. Dark brown does both jobs and takes a polish, which is the entire reason to buy a welted boot rather than a comfortable one.

Suede Penny Loafer

Sand suede · Blake stitched, leather sole

$395

Made in about four weeks

Suede softens everything above it. Under a sport coat it is the difference between dressed and dressed up, and in warm weather that difference matters.

If not this oneDark brown suede is the safer buy and the duller one. Sand is what keeps it reading as a summer shoe rather than a business shoe with the polish left off.

Warm weather

For the heat.

Suede Chukka

Sand suede · cap toe · Blake stitched, natural crepe sole

$425

Made in about four weeks

The most useful shoe in a hot climate. Crepe underfoot, so it walks quietly and forgives a brick sidewalk. Odd trousers, linen jacket, jeans on a Saturday.

If not this oneAlso right in dark brown, navy or khaki — the suede takes color well and the crepe sole forgives all three. Black is the one to skip: a black suede chukka is a shoe with an identity problem.

The Linen Slipper

Navy linen · grosgrain trim · calf lined · slipper construction, leather sole

$345

Made in about four weeks

A slipper built for heat — linen rather than suede, lined in black calf, on a sole thin enough to feel the porch through. For dinner at home, for a club, for the part of an evening after the jackets come off. The skull and sabres is embroidered rather than printed, and it is the one piece of ornament this house will defend. We are a krewe.

If not this oneThe same slipper is made plain, and in gray linen, if you would rather not explain yourself at a dinner party. Take the plain one if the shoe is doing a job. Take this one if the shoe is the joke.

The Driver

Dark brown suede · moccasin construction, rubber gommino sole

$335

Made in about four weeks

Built as a moccasin rather than welted, so it is soft, light and not a walking shoe. For a boat, a car, a long lunch. Never with a suit.

If not this oneIt is only made in suede, which is a decision taken correctly on your behalf. Dark brown behaves itself. Gray and green are for men who have already bought the brown pair.

In the box

Every pair leaves with a cedar tree in it.

Not a courtesy. A shoe bends at the vamp with every step you take, and leather creases where it bends — then holds the crease all night, and after a few hundred nights it cracks along the fold. That is how good shoes actually die. Not the sole, which can be replaced four times. The crease, which cannot be replaced at all.

The second problem is water. A foot is warm and damp for the whole day it spends in there, and damp leather stretches. Left to dry with nothing inside it, it dries crooked — the toe lifts, the shoe shortens, and the shape you paid for is gone in a season.

A tree fixes both at once, and it has to be cedar. Unfinished cedar is absorbent enough to pull the damp out of the lining overnight, and the oil in it is why chests and closets have been lined with the stuff for two hundred years — the smell never starts because the damp never sits. A varnished tree is a shape. A cedar one is a shape that also breathes.

Ours are split at the toe with a sprung barrel and a shaped heel, so they push the shoe back out across the width as well as the length, and they are engraved rather than stickered.

Two rules, and they are most of shoe care. Put the tree in while the shoe is still warm — not in the morning, not tomorrow. And never wear the same pair two days running: leather takes about a day to dry through, and a pair worn every other day lasts a good deal more than twice as long as a pair worn every day.

The Cedar Tree

Unfinished cedar · split toe, sprung barrel · engraved

Included

One pair with every pair of shoes. The most useful object you can put in a shoe, and the one nobody buys for themselves.

If not this oneIt only works in the shoe. A tree left in the box is a paperweight — this one lives in the shoe from the first night, and comes out when you put them on.

And a belt

Cut from the same leather, at the same time.

A belt that nearly matches the shoe is worse than one that plainly doesn't. Order one alongside a pair and it is made in the same leather and finished to the same color, which is the only way the two ever really agree — an off-the-peg brown belt against a made brown shoe is the tell that undoes both.

Brass or nickel buckle. Cut to your waist rather than to the nearest even number, and made in whichever of these leathers you have just chosen — box calf, suede, or the burgundy.

The Belt

Made in the leather of the shoe · brass or nickel buckle

$190

Made in about four weeks

Added to any pair, so the two leave together and arrive the same color.

If not this oneThe rule that actually matters is that the belt matches the shoe — not the watch strap, not the bag. Two browns in a room is one too many.

Before you order

How long, and why it cannot come back.

Six of these are built in about a week and six take about four; each tile says which. Add a few days for shipping, so plan on two weeks for the quick ones and five or six for the rest. There is no rush service, and we would rather tell you that now than the week before a wedding.

A made shoe cannot be returned. It is built on a last to your traced outline, in the leather you chose, and there is no second buyer for it — which is the whole point of it and also the risk you are taking. If something is wrong we will tell you honestly what can be done about it, but we will not pretend the shoe can simply go back.

Which is why the sensible first order is one pair. Wear them for two weeks, tell us what you would change, and the next pair is built to what the first one taught us. Nobody should buy four pairs from a house they have not worn yet.

Twelve, chosen.

We could show you a great many more, most of them louder than anything here — green patinas, tartan panels, contrast soles. They are beautifully made and they are not what this house is for.

These twelve cover black tie, the office, a jacket on a Saturday and a hot afternoon. If you want something outside them, ask. We can build very nearly anything; we simply would not put it on the front page.

Measured at home, like everything else.

Feet are traced rather than tape-measured: stand on a sheet of paper, draw round each foot, and measure across the widest point. Both feet — almost nobody is symmetrical, and the shoe is built to the larger one.

The same rule applies as with a jacket: what the first pair teaches goes onto your last and stays there. More on measuring.

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