FOOTWEAR FOCUS ROAD TEST
Great Gatsby H
By Charles Harington
e won’t thank me for saying so, and he certainly won’t welcome the comparison, but my Dad comes from the same era as funny man Jack
Whitehall’s dour father. That means he wears things like three-piece suits, (Dad wore a waistcoat
before Gareth Southgate – come to think of it, Dad probably wore a waistcoat before he was born!), a tie and stiff-collared shirts and boring, OMG, so boring shiny, polished, black, lace-up shoes.
Dad (and Jack Whitehall’s father) probably
suffered from being in the generation that was born after World War II when rationing was still in place and things were pretty gloomy. They didn’t grow out of it.
That time was not just austere, even on a
scale of today’s standards of austerity, but a reaction to the raucous decadence and idealism of the “Roaring Twenties” that preceded the Great Depression and the War. That time, like today, was a time when money was flowing freely amongst the “beautiful people” because of profits from technological innovation, not, of course, Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google, but things that we now take for granted, like new motor cars, the first electric lighting and the availability of appliances like domestic refrigerators. It was also the period of the ”Prohibition” when sale alcohol was forbidden. But that didn’t stop the party.
A symbol of that hedonistic age was “The Great Gatsby”, a novel about a
reclusive millionaire, by F. Scott Fitzgerald after whom the one of the latest creations of London Brogues is named. The founder and Chief Executive of London Brogues, Derek Moore, started the company because he wanted to bring colour and fashion to the men’s footwear market, cunningly recognising that men’s shoes were an entirely colour- and fashion-free zone.
Heading for hedonism Moore’s formula, and the idea behind the Gatsby is deceptively simple: take a tried, tested and well-loved shoe design like the brogue, and improve on it – just add colour and fashion. So, London Brogues have taken the brogue design, usually offered in the same format as Henry Ford’s cars “any colour as long its black” and add a splash of colour and flair.
18 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018 I can’t help rustling up an appropriate literary reference here. When Scott
Fitzgerald was writing about his proposed novel, The Great Gatsby, in a letter to a friend, he referred to it as, “"Something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." And that puts my pair of Gatsby brogues in context. With the fine-tooled, high-quality leather characteristic of the brogue they are made in tan leather.
But The Gatsby brogue also sports flashes of contrasting colour on the upper black, white, Bordo (wine coloured?) and navy. And to add a bit of flair and distinction all of London Brogues shoes are packed in branded shoe boxes, shoe bags and accompanied with a shoe horn and a polish.
Although I work in a conservative industry with traditional clientele, I don’t wear a three- piece suit to work. So, with an open-necked shirt and smart chinos,
my Gatsby brogues add colour and make a welcome fashion statement in a
traditional environment.
I have to spend a lot of time on my feet so the softness of the leather in what is still a formal shoe is a blessing and I expect them to be hard-wearing.
Indeed, as we are less than two years away from 2020 the shoes could be a signal of a revival of the Roaring Twenties that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Product details:
Gatsby Leather upper, Leather lined brogue shoe with man-made hand cut sole.
Trade Price: £28.00 - RRP: £80.00
Contact details for the Trade: E:
Sales@londonbrogues.co.uk T: 01162697011
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