Shoes - Church's

Established in Northampton, England in 1873 Church's are legendary in producing high quality handmade shoes. Each shoes painstakingly takes 8-10 weeks to manufacture and undergoes hundreds of individual operations by hand to deliver a truly oustanding piece of craftmanship. I have never created the chance to visit the factory but as it's now much closer to my new home i will certainly be planning a trip sometime soon.

I was fortunate enough to purchase my first pair of Church's 7 years ago well below the retail value when i had a student job in an upmarket shoe store. The shoes, black Consul Oxfords, despite being worn regularly, are still on their first sole and look as extrordinary as they did the first time i wore them.

Since then my collection has grown to own that of a pair of beautiful dark brown calf Barcroft's and a pair of tan Boat shoes. Next on the list is a pair of the iconic Grafton's on the new 173 last (as shown in the photo). The shoes are of brogue design, the classic office and business shoe, however i'm slightly torn between colours at the moment. Black would be more suitable for work and the colour i think the Grafton looks best in, however dark brown, or even the burgundy polished binder, would be far more flexible allowing the shoe to be worn less formally with jeans or chinos. I also feel a dark brown calf brogue would complement a grey chalk stripe suit (which is also on my list) perfectly so hey, there's another reason! I'll have to do a bit more weighing up here and i'll let you know what the ultimate decision is when i buy them. [Edit: purchased :-) http://styleessentials.blogspot.com/2009/03/weekend.html]

Brogue trivia: Holes were first placed into what became the brogue in Ireland to allow water to drain when walking through peat bogs.