Bespoke Gaziano & Girling Boots – FINISHED!

After much anticipation I have final received my bespoke boots by Gaziano & Girling! (to see the start of this process see HERE and HERE). It’s been a long process and it’s nice to have finally seen the end result and my design realized. From the drawing below, you can see a few changes (such as the extended saddle/facing piece) as well as the shortening of the cap. But these were all things that I think looking back at it now, were all necessary to make the design complete. That is part of the beauty of shoe design/shoemaking. You see something in your head, but when made into real life can look quite different and thus need the necessary adjustments to make to right. Those subtle adjustments in this case were quite necessary and in the end made the boot, in my opinion, much more complete.

As I have just about every shoe style under the sun, I decided to go for something quite different when this opportunity presented itself and therefore decided to go for something that I could really pound on for the lovely English winters we have here in London (aka a lot of rain). Therefore, I found some tweed cloth and asked for a Norwegian stitch sole with a storm welt, which is about as rigid and tough as it gets without going for a triple sole (which I would never do!). Obviously as I like my shoes not so chunky I asked them to keep them as slender looking as possible, which I think that they did a fairly good job with. In an ideal world, I would have added about a centimeter to the sole and narrowed it off a bit. Other than that, it came out just how I wanted it!

As per fit, well they are easily the most comfortable shoe that I own. What most people really don’t realize is that while cushion is nice for artificial and temporary comfort, what the foot really needs is to be properly supported in the arch, which these do perfectly. Some people might not realize this until they are a lot older, but for those us that problem feet (like myself), this comfort and support becomes easily noticeable when passing between shoes that do and don’t have it. Now I just need the weather to stay as it is, so that I have the opportunity to continue wearing them!

FYI, the process took so long as I told them not to worry about mine but rather focus on the customers.