The beauty of being on Savile Row and working in a store like Gieves & Hawkes is that you get to see and appreciate well-dressed gentleman on a daily basis. And while the majority of shoes I see them wearing are black, every now and then, I get a treat and stumble upon surprises, such as these Clarks shoes from 22 years ago.
Having sold shoes for a few years and many of them being Clarks, I have this vision stamped in my head of what a Clarks shoe should look like. You know, orthopedic looking with a rubber sole and such. So when the gentleman told me that these were Clarks, I just nearly had a heart attack for the bewilderment of knowing that they actually used to make stylish, well-made shoes. That was something I would have never thought, but now that I look at it is something that does not surprise me, as many companies today that have migrated towards mass-produced, mass-market shoes made in China, once used to be well-made shoes built on their own soil, such as Clarks and Johnston & Murphy. But, things change and now we can just appreciate the beauty of relics like these!
