I once asked Tony Gaziano, of Gaziano & Girling, who he thought made the best shoes of all time and he told me Crockett & Jones circa the beginning of the 1900’s. Not to cut them down today, but shoemaking around that time was phenomenally different than what we see now days. I could go on all day on theories why that is, but I will save that debate for another post. More to the subject of C&J circa the early 1900’s is the fact that they have started to release photos of some of their samples from this era and in doing so you are able to see for yourself how different the making was from what we see in the shops today. The stitches to the inch on the welt. And what is more commonly discussed is how amazing the closing was (upper stitching). And these are factory made shoes. Yet they look like bespoke level hand-making. It’s impressive to say the least.
While there has only been a few actual shoe pics thus far, I look forward to following their Instagram account to see if they continue posting new photos of great shoes from a time gone.
Enjoy!
Justin, ‘The Shoe Snob’
