Saturday 8 September 2012

GJ Cleverley - Shoe of the week - Heavy weight hide

The beauty of bespoke shoe making is: the client can select from all kinds of hides, design the shoe, pick the colour, last etc. and wait for the first trial fits and after some months/year of waiting, then comes the final product. 
Speaking of hide selection, I thought I had seen it all, but then as always, I do get some pleasant surprises now & then. London bespoke shoemaker George J. Cleverley (England) made a bespoke shoe in a "new heavy weight hide" for a client in Asia, Singapore.

The below shoe a two tier derby with tasseled laces, is of the hide (which alone can weigh half a ton) of the third largest living land mammal on Earth, after elephants and white rhinos. The Hippopotamus can weigh between 1 500 Kg and 3 000 Kgs. The hide has so much texture, colour and grain as can be seen from the photos. But then again, some gents will not find it good taste to walk in shoes made of a Hippopotamus hide, so in short this may not be every gent's taste....
Pictures sourced from A Suitable Wardrobe

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