It’s a fabulous time to be in the business of proper gentlemen’s shoes. So says George Glasgow Jr, owner of the British shoemaker George Cleverley, where loafers are flying off the shelves. Over an expensive lunch at Mayfair members club Maison Estelle, Glasgow tells me that his firm, founded in 1898, is expanding and will launch on e-retailer Mytheresa next month.
He’s not wrong — proper, preppy shoes have flooded the catwalks, Tommy Hilfiger this year declared streetwear dead and ushered in the return of posh, while searches for loafers are up 100 per cent at John Lewis.
“We run bespoke shoemaking like one of these members clubs,” he says, in his deep, chipper tone, while gesturing around the fourth-floor wood and marble-covered restaurant. And his list of gents is enviable: from Jason Statham and Sylvester Stallone to Henry Cavill and Daniel Day-Lewis, not to mention Glasgow’s best mate (and one of his best men) Gary Lineker (who is “such a sweetheart”). “People always ask, how’d you get that guy to wear your shoes?” he says. “I say he came in and bought them. That’s the best advertisement.”
Glasgow lives in Barnes with his wife, Psycle London instructor Véronique, and two daughters, a five-minute walk from a pub he owns called The Brown Dog. He has a jet-set life, having lived in LA for more than a decade, and still heads to the US for four months a year to sell shoes at trunk shows, on top of trips across the Asian market (Cleverley is stocked at 100 posts in Japan alone). And he is well presented today, wearing a suit and round neck jumper with a Patek Philippe watch (“I’m only wearing it because it’s my birthday dinner later,” he says of his 40th bash at Mr Chow’s. “Nice watches attract unkind eyes in London.”). He’s also wearing a black pair of Cleverleys — one of his collection of “90 to 100 dress shoes, and two pairs of trainers”.
Cleverley, the storied brand at which Glasgow’s father started working aged 16, then later grew to run and passed down to his son in 2007, has over the years heeled a riotous host of barons, princes and viscounts as well as prime ministers — from Winston Churchill to Tony Blair — through to the old Hollywood stars. “Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire — the real legends. They just wore suits and shoes better than anyone else,” Glasgow says.
It continues today in the same vein — “nothing’s changed, except the customers,” he quips — producing handmade dress shoes from their store in The Royal Arcade, and a new factory in Rushton, while continuing to flirt with the big screen. Glasgow reels off a list. “We did the shoes for The Batman with Robert Pattinson, Hobbs & Shaw, The Man From U.N.C.L.E.; my dad was actually in Phantom Thread, Daniel Day-Lewis asked him. All the Guy Ritchie films and The Gentlemen TV show,” he says.
The most lucrative was the Kingsman spy thriller franchise, fronted by Colin Firth and Taron Egerton, which gave way to a host of spin-off Kingsman x Cleverley collaborations. “The Kingsman films are celebrating 10 years this year. We made [director] Matthew Vaughn’s wedding shoes, and I remember getting the call and thinking it could be a good business thing, because we might get one or two shoe collections out of it. Here we are... season 20 or something.”
It might seem a bit surprising that as the cost of living surges, bespoke shoes that start at a couple of grand are only on the up. “The top one per cent just keeps getting more and more,” he says. “But you also get guys now that might have gone out and bought five shoes this summer thinking I want something I can wear next year and years after. I’m a cautious spender, and the cost of living crisis makes people more methodical and research-oriented when spending. That plays into our hands.”
It comes down to quality. Glasgow confesses to turning down countless offers from big fashion conglomerates for his British shoe making company, in an acquisition that would mirror Church’s being bought by the Prada group and John Lobb by Hermès. “All these groups have grown so much that the quality has totally dropped. You buy a product and ask yourself, how much money has gone into the product and how much into the marketing,” he says. “If you have loads of shareholders you are profit-driven and that fuels the growth — we don’t have that pressure.” He puts some of the success down to brand Britain. “People are coming back to British stuff. We’ve always had a great reputation, great cars — Aston Martin, Range Rover, Bentley. We’ve always been known for our craftsmanship.”
His top product does surprise me, however. “It’s croc and alligator — a pair costs about £7,000 and they make up about 40 per cent of our business. We sell tons of them,” he says. “At that top end, it’s crazy how much we sell. It’s through the roof in America and Asia.” Glasgow shrugs off any ethical issues, explaining “everything now is monitored by CITES, an international organisation that looks at everything you do”. Another growing flank is, to Glasgow’s dismay, sneakers — not so much a running trainer as a posh suede shoe complete with hand-sewn, rubber soles. “There’s no graffiti on the side of anything,” he assures me.
That brings us to coffee, and the best and worst dressed gents in town. No prizes for guessing that ghastly footwear is his pet peeve. “Nikolai Von Bismarck is up there with the worst dressed with the holes in his shoes,” he says of Kate Moss’s aristocratic boyfriend. “It’s sloppy. Take them somewhere and get them re-soled.” As for the best, well, they’re all members of his Cleverley club.
Cleverley shoes to add to basket:
Kraille Brown Alligator chelsea boot, bespoke range starts at £4,250, georgecleverley.squarespace.com
Black Calf tassel loafer, £620, georgecleverley.squarespace.com
Rustic Brown Calf brogue, bespoke range starts at £4,250, georgecleverley.squarespace.com
Midnight Navy Nubuck trainer, £350, georgecleverley.squarespace.com
