The Duke's Summer Shoes

There is a photo from 2011 showing Nick Foulkes and George Hamilton, two generally well dressed men, wearing cream suits and black shoes for a summer evening event in Antibes. As I believe most readers will agree, the trouble is that, while approprate for evening, black shoes simply do not complement cream suits very well. This was a problem crying for a solution.

There are several photographs of the late Duke of Windsor in southern Europe before the war wearing what Hilary Freeman of Edward Green told me were black calf and white buckskin spectator versions of the EG Buckingham. A handsome shoe, the Duke wore them regularly for a long time (two pair are visible in photos of his closet in the Bois de Boulogne home published after his death). The challenge of course is that EG, like other ready to wear shoemakers, is unable to procure buckskin any longer and the low nap of reversed goat or conventional suede is considerably less interesting. Enter G. J. Cleverley.

One of the dangerous things (the other is the single malt) about any meeting with Cleverley's two Glasgow's, senior and junior, is that anyything shoe-related is too easy. "Do you still have any white buckskin?" "Yes, we do." "Can you make a black calf and white buck pair of spectator slipons like your Forte model witout a cutout on the band?" "Of course." And some months later the thing is done.

The Duke's summer shoes will debut once the weather lends itself to cream summer suits.