Customer Finds – Old Cleverley Bespoke

One of my colleagues recently brought me two pairs of shoes that his grandfather had passed down to him. Now when this happens, it may be a really old pair of Church’s, Allen Edmonds or an older label like Poulsen & Skone or Nunn Bush, but these puppies just happen to be George Cleverley bespoke shoes, from the early 1960’s, and while that may not seem that old, 50 years is still a good amount of time. I asked my friend to figure out how much they cost at the time and after a little bit of questioning to his grandfather, he told me that they cost 21 Guineas. That does not sound like a lot, but when you think about the time difference and the inflation rate, I will have you know that this amount is now equivalent to about 3000 GBP. It’s always amazing to see how much the value of money has changed and how much more it will change, maybe one day being worth virtually nothing at the rate that it is going. Nevertheless, I found it to be quite interesting to see a shoe that was made when Mr. George Cleverley was actually around and overseeing production. And while the shoes were relatively similar to the standard we have today, there were some small details in the stitching of the upper that seemed to stand out, as a mark of the era.