Merrifield’s: I Found a Cobbler!

A while ago I wrote about the absence of good cobblers in London. Not someone who glues new soles on, cuts keys on the side and might possibly do your dry cleaning, but a cobbler that knows and takes an interest in the craft of repairing shoes. I remarked at the time that there seemed to be a similar problem in New York – few people could name a decent cobbler to me. And since then I have asked in John Lobb and a few other high-end cordwainers here: no one had any bright ideas.

It seems it’s a universal problem – the proliferation of the Timpson-style one stop shop and the disappearance of the real cobbler.

I bring it up again now because I’ve found one. Finally. It’s called Merrifield’s, and is located near East Dulwich station in south London. I’m sure there are others tucked away in nooks of major cities, (I believe last time someone suggested one near Old Street) but this guy is good and actually quite close to me.

Why I was looking in the City, where the principle of capitalistic efficiency has swept away all knowledgeable manufacturers that don’t class as luxury, I don’t know. Look local, where customer relationship and loyalty is still possible, nay profitable.

I was originally searching for a cobbler because I was searching for tongue pads. A mythical piece of padding that glues to the underside of your shoe’s tongue, it is the ideal solution for men with low arches, who find it hard to get shoes that both have enough room for their feet and enough grip across the top to keep their heels in place.

They didn’t sell them in Merrifield’s either, but then that’s not the owner’s fault; he’s not a manufacturer. You just can’t buy them today. So he makes them instead. Two odds of leather, some padding and a little glue; all of a sudden my laces have purchase.

In fact, he replaced the tongue entirely because it was simply too thin to provide any support. This he was disgusted with. I didn’t mention they were Brooks Brothers’ Peal & Co. Or how much they cost.

I particularly recommend this solution for anyone who has bought shoes they thought fit them well, only to discover that after a few months of wear and softening leather, the shoe has expanded beyond them.

I also recommend Merrifield’s. I’m sure the number of readers that live within convenient distance of East Dulwich is small, but it’s worth a stop if you’re one of them.

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Links: Topsiders are Made in China but Vancouver has Great Stores

• Ah, the topsider. Unfortunately, it does not come with a free boat.

• One of the few American companies that actually makes them in America.

• The population of the London Lounge was equally outraged at where most topsiders are made. See this discussion back in March.

• A great review, and interview with the owner of, a menswear store in Vancouver.

• Love the sockless shoes. My question: how do you stop your feet stinking them out?

• Leffot was asking the same question back in June when it first opened. Answers on a postcard to 10 Christopher Street. Or just add a comment here.

• But should you wear them year round as such, if you can stand it? It’s a similar debate to the one about tweed in summer.

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The Rules and How to Break Them. No3

Do not wear white after Labor Day.

Rules are there for a reason, but there is nothing wrong with breaking them. These statements are not contradictory. Once you understand the rules, you can work out how to break them effectively.

Of all the rules, not wearing white after Labor Day in the US is the most disconnected from its intention. Doing so attracts the ire of many people who would otherwise have no opinions on correct dress or style. They certainly would not point out that notch lapels are anathema on a tuxedo.

For example, in an online discussion on this rule, one person comments: “White should never be worn between Labor Day and Easter. It is called good manners. Only the ignorant of decorum would say…oh, it doesn’t matter. It shows how much education and attention to propriety a person has. Only break the rule if you want people to think you do not know any better.”

Can you feel the vitriol spattering up onto you?

The reasoning behind the rule is simple. You wear white in the summer because the weather is brighter. It is usually sunnier, the sun is higher in the sky, so it is brighter. And light-coloured clothes suit brighter weather, just like black is the dominant colour of an evening event. Other light colours are equally summery – tan linen jackets, seersucker suits, co-respondent shoes – and suit brighter weather.

But that does not mean that it is never bright in winter. Indeed, the frosty and blue-skied days of December often seem the brightest, if only by contrast to the leaden days that surround them.

White is the lightest of colours and therefore only suited to the brightest of days. In order to avoid having to teach the plebeians about the harmony of colours and weather, a rule was invented – only wear white in the summer months, here defined as between Labor Day and Easter. Like all rules, this one loses in complexity what it gains in immediacy.

Once you know why that rule exists, it is easy to break it with impunity. Winter whites can look simply lovely, although they should really be creams and off-whites to be most practical and flattering.

The pictures illustrate this, with the wearing of cream cotton trousers (again, from The Sartorialist. He just takes the best pictures). Trousers are probably the easiest rule-breaker to go for, as they are after all not far off the ubiquitous American chino in colour. I’d go for shoes next, with jacket last.

It is no coincidence that this rule is dominant in the US, yet barely known in the UK. The weather in much of the US, particularly the east coast, is consistent enough to link sun with particular months, and so produce a sensible rule. In London, where you are just as likely to have grim rain in July and a week of sun in January, the rule seems absurd.

That is what the rule means, and understanding it allows you to break it intelligently. Wear white when it’s bright.

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Forgotten Style Aces: Edward Hughes Ball Hughes

A friend recently told me that they believe there is no better, more flattering combination of shirt and tie for any man than that of black and white; a white shirt, with a black tie. Traditionalists might scoff at the practice of wearing black ties to anything other than a funeral or an evening function; until quite recently, the modern practice and code has been to wear all colours of tie during the day, except black.

Some I have encountered remark that wearing a black tie makes you look like personal security, or a doorman, or a chauffeur: a man in service to another. They are often surprised when I inform them that you can trace back the ‘invention’ of the black tie (or cravat) with the white shirt to a gentleman who represented anything but the image of servitude. A man who lived a life so wildly fantastical that his interesting tale is refuted as Aesopian myth; but he was real and he was indeed credited, and credit was always to be his downfall, with the invention of the black cravat.

Edward Hughes Ball Hughes, known in society as ‘The Golden Ball’ due to his extraordinary wealth, was a friend of the Prince Regent and a noted dandy. He was, in addition to being fabulously rich, a handsome man and, no doubt due to his notoriety as a hedonist and colossal gambler, influential in matters of fashion. Ball Hughes was still at Eton when Beau Brummell was gambling his last farthing at the tables in St James. His spells at Cambridge and in the navy must have been brief; by the age of 19 he had inherited a fortune of £40,000 a year. With such riches, connections to the highest circles will have been expedited.

In the days of the Regency, and indeed the era of George IV, men like Ball Hughes were the Hollywood stars. In the capital of the largest and most influential empire, society concerned itself with sex, scandal, money and fashion; Ball Hughes was one of those at the centre of attention. He bought Oatlands, Henry VIII’s great palace in Surrey, from the Duke of York and spent his honeymoon there with his beautiful new wife, a sixteen year old Spanish danseuse. He would famously be seen, set striding across his newly acquired estate, hunting in his latest creations for fashion; an army of servants carrying guns, wine and food behind him.

However, despite his undoubted influence in fashion, it was for his career as a gamester that he was best known. Gambling at anything from cards to shuttlecock, Ball Hughes dissipated most of his fortune away through his speculations at the tables. He was written letters by concerned friends, fellow members of his clubs, that there were conspirators, vultures; ‘they seek [to] knock down your whole fortune in one night.’ Though he gained little reward but pleasure from his gambling habits, the Oatlands speculation was one of his few triumphs. Much of the land was sold for the development of villas and Ball Hughes was able to live out his remaining few years in the luxury he had enjoyed throughout much of his life.

So for gambling he was known, but for the black cravat he is remembered. His legacy for his heirs had all but disappeared but the most important legacy; the daring to flaunt an alternative style, however conservative that style appears in the modern day, preceded one of the most common practices and combinations of tone available to men today. I often think to myself that I could credit few individuals with the appreciation that they were the reason I do a certain thing, or dress a certain way – largely because if they did exist, they are unknown to me. I relish therefore the opportunity to raise a glass to a single figure in history whose accidental power and influence is the reason I am flattered by monochrome today.

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Paul Smith Sale Shop, Take Two

Ok, I’ve written about this before. But it deserves a second mention – largely because I bought my fifth pair of shoes in as many years there yesterday.

It is the Paul Smith sale shop. Located on Avery Row, just off a Bond Street tributary. Sells many items made by Mr Smith (suits, socks, shirts). But most impressively has a constant turnover of great shoes with 40% to 60% off.

You wouldn’t think that would happen with a sale shop. After all, its function is to take the dross that didn’t sell in the main store before the end of the season and recover as much profit as possible. When things don’t sell here, they have to be binned – so there is a steep incentive to try and recover your costs at least.

There isn’t always a great selection. Over the summer there was an alarming proliferation of leather sandals in the Paul Smith stripes. Which didn’t shift for months.

But pop in there when you are near Bond Street and I reckon every second or third visit will find you sorely tempted.

Last time I wrote about the store, I had just bought a pair of red “dip dye” suede brogues. They were lovely. All season I had watched that dip-dye range sit mockingly in Selfridge’s, daring me to spend over £250 on craftsmanship that doesn’t realistically match the great Northampton cordwainers they parade alongside.

Then, two months into the next season, a wave of the red suede numbers dropped into the sale store. It would seem red suede was the least popular of the permutations, yet they were my favourites.

But many of the shoes I have bought there have not been unusual. Chocolate wing-tips, for instance, and tan suede boots. The range of shoes and the sizes available is often impressive.

Particularly compared to a recent incarnation of the Paul Smith sale shop, which opened in the Royal Exchange in London. What was originally a straight Paul Smith store turned into a sale shop, but stocking an unusually limited range. All the shoes come in just one or two sizes, often seven for a man. (Which is usually a sign that the products are ex-display rather than ex-store, as display products are nearly always size seven – apparently it is the most aesthetically satisfying, for all you size sevens out there.)

Which brings me to the reason my enthusiasm was ignited anew. I had been looking for some practical boots, particularly with the prospect of Christmas in the country and lots of long Dorset walks. Something rubber-soled, possibly calf-length, nice hard-working leather.

And I found them yesterday in the sale shop, in the shape of Paul Smith’s collaboration he did with Triumph motorcycles. They’re slightly different to the model shown, being lower and not having the checkerboad pattern on the inside. But boy were they great value.

Go now. And watch out for the brown snakeskin oxfords.

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