Reflections on 2025: A Year to Remember

The original text below was written for my shoe brand followers at J.FitzPatrick, but as it intertwines my life at J.FitzPatrick as well as my life at The Shoe Snob, it is relevant to you as well. It will reference the brand a lot, but I will update the text at the bottom of the post to also incorporate my plans here, at The Shoe Snob. It is a long read (compared to normal). Enjoy my reflections on 2025.

2025 was a hard year. The kind of year that builds character. The kind that makes you look at your life and wonder what it’s all about. I am sure many of you felt the same thing. And started to question your own path, life, values, and future. It certainly did for me. If you have been following my story since the beginning, since my time riding the train from Brighton to London, designing shoes on A4 paper on the small table that flaps down from the seat in front of you, you will know that I am no stranger to adversity.

While I love to tell myself that I love peace, the reality is that I have always thrived in adversity. It’s not that I want it or even seek it, but it seems to have been following me ever since 2008, when I got on a flight from Seattle to Florence, Italy, and never looked back. From that day, my life has felt like something you read in a book or watch in a drama movie. The ups and downs have been sometimes unfathomable. And 2025 takes the cake. But at the same time, 2025 made me truly realize what I want out of life and made me grow in so many ways.

Some of you might have been noticing certain things, such as ‘Where are the MTOs?’, ‘What happened to ‘Pre Orders’, ‘Why are many models so low in stock or even disappearing (such as the button boots)’, etc.? ‘ All valid questions and ones that deserve explaining.

Everything started a few years ago when I went to North Idaho to visit one of my sisters and other parts of my family after having seen them only once prior, in a span of around 12 years (far too long and a big reason why my goals have changed). I am originally from Seattle, but my father migrated to Hope, Idaho, with his wife (my stepmother) and my sisters when I was a teenager. So I used to spend time there, during Summer, long weekends, etc. Being a snot-head city boy, I never appreciated North Idaho. I loved the chaos of the city. I appreciated the beauty but never dreamed of living there. Just like I never dreamed I would live in England, which I did for 7 years. Funny how life works out.

During my visit, I fell in love with North Idaho. But more so, I fell in love with the joy and serenity that overcame me when I saw how happy my son was playing with his cousins. That was more powerful than selling all of the shoes in the world. My fondest memories as a kid were always with family, and I wanted my son to live that, too. Yet, in my quest to become ‘someone important in the shoe industry,’ I put my family in the rearview and did what I could to chase a career. I molded my life to fit my career. And during that trip, I realized that I had been doing it all wrong, and I now desired to mold my career to how I want to live my life: Close to my family. Furthermore, having a shop in the City (NYC) while traveling from NJ, I was gone nearly 13 hrs a day. I came home exhausted, stressed, and barely saw my family. The weekends were short and never enough. I realized, this had to change. All of the money, fame, and recognition weren’t worth always being away from my family, and when with them, either stressed or preoccupied with business. That wasn’t life. And my goals had now changed. I decided I would move to North Idaho and take the business with me, even if it meant shrinking and becoming less relevant. Full transparency; I didn’t care. I just wanted peace and to be close to family, nature, and what I now felt was truly important.

That was one reason why I refused to try to find a new lease on a shop in the city. My mind was set. I was getting out of the East Coast. And I made a two-year plan to get there. This was at the end of 2024, after my second visit to North Idaho. I would run everything online and work from home. That was my new dream.

Plus, I was having issues with the factory, specifically on the ‘JF Line’. They were serving me a lot of shoes that I felt didn’t meet the grade of quality I was promised, and I was asking for money back and rejecting a lot of them. They told me that they couldn’t afford to keep making me those shoes at the price they were, especially since they were giving me refunds on unwanted stock. So they raised prices by 40%. I told them that it would no longer be an ‘entry line’ at these new prices and that I would look elsewhere to have them made. So I asked for my lasts and patterns and started shopping for samples with other factories. But creating a new production is no easy feat, especially when trying to mimic the quality and style of the shoemaking of two very different factories. That started in mid-2024. And the goal was to move to Idaho in the Summer of 2026, after my son completed Kindergarten.

Many of you might have noticed that in 2025, the J.FitzPatrick brand really didn’t get ‘new models’. We replaced Museum Calf with Marble Patina, which is another story that I won’t get into, but no real ‘new collections.’ That was the beginning of tightening the brand. Focusing on our classics, per se. While I won’t even get into the changes of the economic world, the shoe industry as a whole, and the growth of welted shoes, or lack thereof, needless to say, the brand was changing due to everything going on. There is a lot more behind the scenes that I won’t share, but 2025 has been one for the record books, to say the least. But the cherry on top hadn’t even happened yet.

In mid-October 2025, I got a call from my ‘handler’ at the factory. And I got some news that I had been feeling in my gut for a while now. The factory had been sold to new investors. I wasn’t surprised, but didn’t think that it was going to happen so quickly. I knew that they would either go bust or sell. They had been messing me around for a long time, and it finally made sense. But the kicker was that the new owners were no longer going to entertain private label footwear and most likely get out of the ‘dress shoe industry.’ They were originally bootmakers, making cowboy boots and women’s boots for large brands like Chanel, Celine, and the like.

They promised to complete my existing orders, but would not entertain new ones. That is why I had to remove everything but stock from the website, as I could no longer place new orders.

Thankfully, a year ago, I started making samples elsewhere and am nearly complete with that, being ready to go. In the end, it would appear that it was all perfect timing in line with my cross-country move, allowing me the time to wind down this factory and start with a new one, planning on the new stock to arrive in my new location. But that does mean that we might be quite lean for a while during that transition, and there will be no more custom orders until I have finally set up fully with the new production.

I wanted to give you all an explanation on why things might be strange, as of late. I have literally been dealing with more than you can imagine in 2025. But it is okay. I truly believe everything happens for a reason, so please do not worry for me or the brand. I will continue to share updates as things progress, so please do stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, I just want to thank you as always for your undying support. It is truly because of all of you that I maintain the courage and strength to face the adversity of business that I do. Because nothing makes me happier than making others happy, especially in their footwear.

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Many of you who subscribe to J.FitzPatrick might have already read the above. Here is where I will lay out the rest. There are still many things that I will not divulge at the moment and will share at a future point, but 2025 made me realize a lot about my original goal of ‘Seeing Men Wearing Better Shoes.’ To build the foundation of that dream, I created The Shoe Snob Blog, in 2010, not only as a way to document my journey through the industry, but also inspire others who shared similar dreams as myself, as well as to build a following who would ultimately become future customers of my shoe brand, J.FitzPatrick. But J.FitzPatrick was always an ego-driven idea: To have my name inside of shoes worn by the men of the world. It tied into my ultimate goal, but was more about me and my desires to create shoes I personally wanted to have.

My ultimate dream was to get so big at J.FitzPatrick that I would one day give up The Shoe Snob, as I had reached my dream and pinnacle of success. But the reality is that I could never give up The Shoe Snob, and that meant I was always being pulled from two directions, on each arm at the same time. I would not excel in any one thing because I had two that I had to take care of. My time was therefore always being pulled 50/50, instead of giving one 110%. It was not a recipe for success. 2025 made me realize that. What is ironic is that while J.FitzPatrick is me, my name literally, I resonate more with The Shoe Snob, which is a movement, an idea that people can get behind. It is more powerful and can resonate more easily across all consumers and nations. Not everyone will appreciate J.FitzPatrick, but everyone can appreciate the idea of The Shoe Snob and what that means. Anyone who loves shoes can be a Shoe Snob. And I finally realized that.

I love shoes. Not just dress shoes. All shoes. Shoes are the foundation of your outfit. They create your look. No matter how well-dressed you are, if your shoes suck, your entire look does. It is always about the shoes, no matter if you are dressed in a suit, dressed as a prep, in urban wear, or even as a runner. I guarantee you that runners are judging each other by their shoes while wearing spandex! It is always about the shoes. And this whole time, I have been focusing just on one sector of shoes: Dress Shoes. But I love ALL SHOES. I love boots. I love boat shoes. I love casual loafers. I even love sneakers. I love it all. And realized that if I truly want to see men wearing better shoes, I need to break free of just focusing on one style of it. I want to make boat shoes. I want alpine-style boots in all forms: a commando sole, a dress sole, a sneaker sole, and the like!

But at the same time, I don’t want to be so egotistical that I only focus on my shoes and what I do. I have been fortunate to make a lot of friends during my time in the shoe industry, with many of the owners of many of the shoe brands we love and cherish today. And I want to help them, too. I want to see them grow. I want to simply make sure that everyone who loves shoes gets a good pair that they can enjoy, whether or not that is in my own brand or someone else’s, so that at least they are happy and have gotten out of junk and into something worth spending money on. That is my goal for the future, and that goal cannot be tied down by my own selfish desires. I realize that my goal of seeing men wearing better shoes is bigger than myself. Bigger than one brand. Bigger than an industry. It is a movement that I must look to lead, by my actions and by getting people into better shoes one pair at a time.

So, expect big changes from me in 2026 as I embark on new avenues, new goals, and new ideas to grow this industry, not only in dress shoes, but all styles of shoes, while elevating quality and design. And I will also be getting back into shoe accessories and helping people care for their current shoes and purchases.

Part of my goals above have already taken form at www.theshoesnob.com, my new website. That site will grow as I continue to add new products. Make sure to follow that if you want to follow my new, reinvented dreams of Seeing Men Wearing Better Shoes and the accessories to help them do so.

I could never give up The Shoe Snob because of all of you. Because I know that many of you truly appreciate what I do, and I could never bring myself to let you down. So thank you for helping me realize more about myself and what I truly need to do.

Happy New Year!

—Justin FitzPatrick, The Shoe Snob

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