Yesterday I went into London, to visit the Foale & Tuffin exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum with a friend. Afterwards I had a few hours to spare until I was due to meet another friend for tea, so I’d planned to spend the afternoon looking at the Relics of Old London exhibition at the Royal Academy.
While I was in the area I thought I’d just have a little wander down Jermyn Street, to have a little look at some lovely shirts and shoes. From there I ended up in the Piccadilly Arcade, where I was ambushed by Jeffery West, whose shoes I wrote about a few weeks ago.
I asked the lovely salesman whether the shoes were ever made in a size 39 (a men’s size 5), and he said that they weren’t. Then, as every good salesman should, he suggested that I try on a size 6 and see what they were like. I agreed, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t fit, and I’d be able to leave the shop without buying an extraordinarily expensive pair of shoes.
The pair he brought out were the Sylvian plain front gibson winklepickers, in black. They were beautiful, but not what I wanted to buy, so I still felt relatively safe.
And then I put them on.
They’re so narrow and so pointy that once I’d put my orthotics inside they turned out to fit perfectly.
Oops.
The lovely salesman then checked on the computer, and discovered that he had one other pair of shoes in stock in a size 6. They were a customer order that had never been collected, due to the customer moving abroad. The design is an old one, so they’re no longer on the Jeffery West website, but just look at the picture above. I have to say that these are pretty much my perfect shoes!
The Gibson style is a much better fit for my peculiar feet than the usual Oxford. Beautiful brogue detailing, and they have the signature Jeffery West cleft heel. Despite the extreme pointiness, they’re wide enough to accommodate all of my toes (something that women’s shoes never quite seem to manage), and the colour and shine are just beautiful.
Even better, because these shoes are no longer part of the regular range, the lovely salesman was able to offer them to me for a substantial reduction in price!
And then he told me that after you’ve bought five pairs, you’re entitled to a lifetime discount.
Damn him.