FOOTWEAR FOCUS ROAD TEST
Henry Harington puts the boot into bugatti
T
he editor of footwear today can be such at wag! I didn't know the extent of her sense of humour until she contacted me recently and said that she had a real road test for me. What could she mean? That all the road tests I’d done on shoes over the years were unreal? And, was her
opinion of the "unreal" nature of my past road tests a compliment or a reprimand? Or, that the shoes I had tested were in truth virtual shoes and therefore unreal? What the editor said next nearly had me falling off my chair: She told me that she had organised me to road test a bugatti. Now, I am not a petrol head in the mould of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. But, I know that Bugatti is one of the finest, most respected and rarest of motorcar marques in the world. It is automotive object of desire. Such was my lust for speed and my vanity for the opportunity to pose in
this iconic car that I lost my senses. In my mind eye I pictured myself on the Top Gear track doing time trials, or wreathed in smoke as I spun around burning rubber as I tested the road holding of the vehicle. I seem to recall Richard Hammond racing a jet in a Bugatti on one occasion. Or perhaps, as motoring journalists are, I would be dispatched to test the car in some exotic location like the Italian Riviera. I came crashing down to earth when the editor asked me what size I
wanted! bugatti are also shoes and that is what I was being offered to road test. So I was not being offered a prestige car with Italian antecedents, French
manufacture and German ownership. Instead I was to be the recipient of a pair of shoes from a German firm that had been making quality shoes for 85 years. However, the shoe company had its own international lineage: founded in Germany, now owned by a Swiss company and boasting the additional global attributions of producing its shoes in India. The shoes I was sent were black leather desert boots with a unique writing embossed over the ankles. Two words that immediately came to my mind when I received the shoes, one was comfortable (they are made from very high grain leather) – and, secondly stylish. So stylish that I decided to wear them on a stylish night out drinking cocktails in Bristol. Now, Bristol in my mind is associated with sherry - the tongue-
shrivellingly dry sherry that was served to guests by my grandfather in his drawing room when we returned from freezing our pew-polishers off at the Sunday service. I think it was called "Bristol cream" sherry.
But, today Bristol has a glitzy reputation and has more dedicated cocktail
bars than any other city in the UK. You don't go for a "pub crawl" in Bristol; you enjoy a "cocktail bar slink". In Bristol one glides from salubrious establishment to urbane establishment in a sophisticated air increasingly rarefied by the vapours of absinthe, cognac, gin, vodka... and I forget the rest! With a Corpse Revivers, Horse Necks and Moscow Mules lined up on the
bar, I deliberately lifted my trouser leg to show the friends with whom I went out for the evening my "cocktail boots". Reactions were invariably hugely positive, except where one friend who lapsed into the green shade of absinthe from sheer jealously, he liked the shoes so much. A pair of comfortable, stylish, uniquely designed objects of desire then. As the marketing folk at bugatti explained, after telling me the ladies shoes were made in India: “If Italy was seen earlier as a “Mecca” of shoe production India has reached today similar high standards, which allow us to produce our shoes there with a good conscience. European quality standards are applied in the factories, which are supervised constantly by the experts of our Quality Management directly on site. Leather and soles are supplied from Europe and some components which are not visible from outside, such as insoles or pastes, come from Germany in order to guarantee a uniform high-grade standard.” They needn’t have bothered, the quality of the shoes, the softness of the
leather, the admiring opinions of my friends are sufficient endorsement. There can be no doubt that basic bugatti shoes stylishly combine the latest fashion trends with classically elegant shapes that sets it off with the shoemaker’s craft. This is accentuated by striking details such as eyelets, bugatti hot-stamps, embossing, elasticated inserts and decorative trims that reflect the unmistakable bugatti flair and finish.
Details: bugatti Black Leather Desert Boot, Trade Price: £41.25 - RRP: £99.99 Contact: Bench Grade Brands Ltd.,
service@benchgradebrands.com tel: ++ 44 1604 686 800 fax: ++ 44 1604 686 801
12 • FOOTWEAR TODAY
• APRIL 2013
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