Tag: boots

Jeffery-West

My friend Patrick is a Very Bad Influence. We were talking about shoes, and he pointed me in the direction of Jeffery-West. Now we’re both coveting beautiful shoes that we can’t afford – and they aren’t even made in my size! (And I still haven’t saved up enough money to go on a shoemaking course.)

These shoes may be constructed in a traditional way, in Northampton, but their design is far from old-fashioned. The leathers are beautifully coloured and often extremely unusual – check out this “blood-spattered” patent chelsea boot. The attention to detail is very impressive. The soles and linings are red, the heels are cloven, the punching is all diamond-shaped, and the message hidden underneath the shoe pictured above is “decadence, sleaze & excess”. What more could you demand of your footwear than that?

You can, of course, buy your shoes online, but if you’re looking for decadence, sleaze and excess, you could do worse than pay a visit to one of their shops. The words “fabulous” and “gothic” spring to mind, with more than a little elegance and luxury thrown in for good measure.

This is a window display from the Jeffery-West shop in Piccadilly:

and if shoes alone aren’t enough, they also have a gorgeous range of belts, cufflinks, canes, umbrellas and wallets – all the essentials a modern dandy might need.

(Unless you’re a woman, with too-small feet. Sigh.)

All images © Jeffery-West.

Mmmmm, boots.

It’s a good job I’m not a goth any more. Nor a costumer, nor simply a collector of amazing shoes.

Otherwise I’d have to buy these:

Probably in the black velvet.

(Available here, for £60. They’re by Pleaser.)

Seeing these has put me straight into the mood for wearing the most enormous skirt, and a tailored jacket or frock coat.

Sometimes I miss dressing up.

Clearly I need to get myself invited to an incredibly lavish costume party, for which I can concoct an outfit made entirely from fabrics that I already have in my stash. Then I might be able to justify buying the boots to go with it!

Desert Boots.

Desert Boots

The boots in the picture are all from the Clarks Originals collection. I don’t think I ever owned a pair of desert boots. Wallabees were popular when I was a teenager, and I didn’t like those at all, so I think I went straight from school shoes to Dr Martens. I think my Dad might have worn a sandy-coloured pair though, in the ’70s.

I feel as though I should love the Liberty print pair (top right) on principle (Liberty print shoes!), but they’re not quite my cup of tea. The gold filigree suede ones (top left), on the other hand… I have a bit of a thing for filigree suede at the moment. I also like what happens when you make a desert boot taller.

London College of Fashion have a course on how to make desert boots, which I have of course been coveting for some years. Sadly I don’t have £535, or the extra £200 it would cost to travel into London on ten consecutive Monday evenings. One day, perhaps I’ll have both the funds and the time when their Summer School comes around.

But I’m thinking that if I do decide to order a pair of polystyrene lasts, these are the kind of boots that I’ll attempt to make. In lovely fabrics, of course.

New boots for a new term.

Well, okay, I’m not going back to school, but I am applying for jobs. Assuming I’m actually invited for any interviews, I thought I’d better go for something a little bit smarter than the shiny Dr Martens I was looking at the other week!

These are Hush Puppies, and I bought them online from Cloggs. I took a bit of a risk ordering online, but Cloggs have a very simple returns process, so I thought I’d give it a try. Thankfully, they’re an almost perfect fit! They’re wide enough to accommodate all my toes, deep enough for my orthotics, and wide enough at the calf that I can actually do up the zip.

If I was going to be nit-picky (which you know I am), I’d complain that they’re a little bit more baggy than I would have liked around the ankle. But then Hush Puppies can’t reasonably be expected to know the precise dimensions of my ankles, so I think I’ll let them off.

Of course, now I’ve looked at the Hush Puppies website to paste in the link, and am desperately wishing that I could still wear high heels. I’d be running around in these or these, if that were the case.

Now I just have to hope that these boots last as long as the pair that they’re replacing. I’ve had my Think! boots for at least five years, and I love them dearly. Sadly they’re now beyond repair, and Think! haven’t made a similar style for a long time.

My new boots have a lot to live up to. Good luck, Hush Puppies.

My favourite time of year.

2009 Doc Martens!

You may have gathered that this is my favourite time of year not because we’ve finally had a whole afternoon of unbroken sunshine – but because the new styles of winter boots are just starting to appear in the shops!

OH MY GOODNESS, PINK PATENT TARTAN DOC MARTENS. *faints with joy*
Mind you, I do already have a pair of bright pink patent Doc Martens, so maybe two pairs would be overkill…?

I’m not sure why I’ve accidentally fallen in love with these silver ones. They look like robot boots! I think they are probably the shiniest boots I’ve ever seen. And we all know that I just can’t help being drawn to shiny things!

I used to have a 20-hole pair of DMs, but they became too small when I had to start wearing orthotics. What I really want is a patent pair with a zip, but the only place I can find them in my size (UK6) is Zappos, and they’ve suspended their international shipping service for the time being. 🙁

The wingtip style are also from Zappos, and I deliberated about them for so long that they’ve sold out in my size. If I’d bought them when I first saw them, I could have had them shipped over from the US and been wearing them right now! But now it’s too late.

Every time I look at new boots it makes me deeply regret selling my Doc Martens collection. I got rid of them on the advice of a podiatrist, who I’m now fairly certain was trying to sell me some of his own very expensive shoes instead. Despite all my foot and hip problems, these three styles of Doc Martens remain the most comfortable boots I’ve ever worn.

Hurry up, winter!

I never seem to have a great deal of luck with summer shoes. Every year I buy a pair that look as though they ought to be comfortable, and every year I end up with terrible blisters. I’ve pretty much given up hope of finding a pair of smart shoes that I can wear in summer.

Today I’m suffering from some kind of Dreaded Lurgy (no, not Swine Flu!), so I’m reading a pile of fashion magazines and doing a bit of window shopping on the computer.

I spotted the boots above in the current edition of UK Vogue, and I’ve fallen madly in love. They’re by Solea at Kurt Geiger, and as far as I can tell they’re not actually available to buy yet.

I have just two questions about these little boots:

Do they come in black, and can I afford them?

I suspect the answer to both of those questions is going to be “no”, but in the meantime I’m quite happy imaging how these pretty boots would look with just about everything in my wardrobe.