Lauren here –
This month we’re celebrating the new Fall/Winter styles we’ve opened for pre-order all at once. Each week we’re taking a closer look at each style, the inspiration and research behind it, and how we made our version.
This week the focus is on the “Londoner” oxfords. I’ll just say right now that I’m madly in love with these (you may think I say this about all our shoes, but truly, these oxfords hold a special place in my heart). And for the first time for our regular product range, we’ve done some really interesting colors.
For the past several years, we’ve been wanting to do an Edwardian oxford. This is a style that I’ve been asked for by many people many times, so there was no better time to get it going than for this Fall and Winter season.
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| Londoner Oxfords in Cherry (left) and Tan (right) |
The Londoners are based on a great many early 20th century women’s oxfords. *A great many.* Women’s fashion for this period is heavily influenced by menswear, with tailor mades and work clothes, sharp details and clean lines, paper collars, neckties, and the footwear to complement. Ladies’ oxford shoes featured stacked leather heels, pointed toes, and broguing, and were worn by all social classes. We have several pairs of women’s oxfords in our study archive, and museum collections are also full of them.
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| An original pair of women’s Edwardian oxfords. Click through to see how these looked when they came to us…. |
In designing our version, I wanted to use the Gibson last and heel shape for comfort and stability, and the broguing was a must. I spec’d the design for ivory and black, and these were the first prototypes:
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| zzzzzzzzzzzzzz – the first prototypes for the Londoner in ivory and black. Uninspiring. |
Hrm. How boring. What was in my head wasn’t quite translating, so it was time to try something different.
What was it about the original oxfords that made them so cool? The design with all that broguing was pretty cool, but perhaps just as important was the patina. The antique oxfords were dimensional and came in all kinds of interesting colors, like deep dark red and burled tan.
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| Pair of Shoes, 1910-1914, Victorian and Albert Museum |
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| Oxford, 1900-1919, Shoe Icons Museum |
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| Oxford, 1914-19, Pierre Yantorny, The Met Museum |
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| Shoe, 1910-14, Victorian and Albert Museum |
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| Pair of Shoes, c. 1900, Victorian and Albert Museum |
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| Shoe, 1910-14, Victorian and Albert Museum |
This brought to mind some beautiful finishes I’d been seeing on men’s classic oxfords lately, so we decided to give something like this a try. The result was a deep “cherry” cordovan finished in black, and a burled “whiskey” tan deepening to a darker brown, both with stacked leather heels and good sturdy leather soles.
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| “Londoner” Edwardian Oxfords in Cherry (left) and Tan (right) with two-tone ombre effects on the toes, heels, and broguing. Each of these is hand-finished and polished. |
SO much better than the plain black and ivory, and I’m glad to see you gals feel the same. So far in the pre-order the “Londoner” in cherry has been the most popular, followed closely by the tan colorway. I know you are going to love them when they arrive!
Pre-Order for “Londoner” and all the new Fall/Winter styles is open through November 1st for $20 off per pair, plus nice combo deals on accessories and shoe care products. USA orders over $165 get free shipping as well. 🙂
