In recent blogs I’ve discussed the impact that component details such as lace colour and edge treatments can have on footwear design. A prime example of this is March’s shoe of the month.
 
I have taken our country brogue, this time in black grain calf, and injected styling elements that lighten and freshen the shoe’s aesthetic. Despite it being a black shoe, the styling has transformed it into an eye-catching and surprisingly successful Spring/Summer piece. The forthcoming Lodger Spring/Summer 2011 Collection explores the idea of melding traditions from different seasons. Pairing darker textured leathers, traditionally selected for a wintry aesthetic, with light ’summery’ sole edges, skeleton linings and natural welt stitching is a look I have explored at length and feel works beautifully.
 
The storm welt on March’s shoe is unstained and simply sealed with a light waxing. This pale leather colour is reflected in the flat cotton lace. The sole edge has also been left ‘nude’ and clear-waxed. The final touch is leaving the welt stitch a natural linen colour. The grained pebble texture contrasts with the smooth flat edges of the light sole edge, and leads the eye from the light lace, down through the brogued pattern pieces to the rolled storm welt.

For my first solo design for Lodger, I wanted to propose a suede boot for Spring that would look great with jeans, but could easily be dressed up for a Mayfair lunch. We are accustomed to boots being around for A/W, but I think they are increasingly becoming a year-round staple.

While Lodger had previously offered a monk shoe (as the March 2009 shoe of the month) it hadn’t yet used a buckle fastening in one of its boots, and this led me directly to traditional Jodhpur patterns.

I felt the key aesthetic features of the Jodhpur boot were the shapes and contours formed by the interlocking straps and, because they are left unadorned, the shape of the toe and vamp. With this and a dressed-up look in mind, the place to start was in selecting our 12221 last for it’s elegant, gentlemanly toe.

I also wanted to honour the Lodger hallmark of tweaking the accepted order of pattern pieces (see our English Contemporary Cap Toe). In the traditional Jodhpur pattern, the vamp piece of the boot overlays the quarters and is pulled back and secured over the quarters by the straps and buckle. My original design had the vamp overlaying the quarter on the inside of the boot, but the quarter overlaying the vamp piece on the outside.

While technically possible, our pattern cutters quickly pointed out the impracticability of blocking (the technique of shaping a single piece of leather to the curve of a boot), clicking and closing an asymmetric pattern piece in production. The finished design has the quarters overlaying the vamp on both sides of the boot, a fine slip bead showing off the contours of the quarters.

Returning to the other key feature of the design, I wanted to bring the ankle straps (and the back strap) to centre stage. This meant crossing the ankle straps over at the vamp and using a calf leather to contrast with the suede.  The positioning and proportions of the straps were essential both aesthetically (to harmonise with the contours of the last and the lines of the rest of the pattern (particularly the tab where the quarters join the vamp)) and practically (they need to allow foot entry and then effectively hold the leg into the boot). On the first prototype, they leaned too much towards the practical and were too high and too narrow, so I repositioned and fluted them as below:

The back strap, again in contrast calf leather, needs to be functional in securing the ankle straps as well as aesthetically complementary in width. The stitched double arrow tabs reinforce this functional aspect while adding movement to the lines of the boot.

In keeping with the boot’s equestrian roots, I’ve chosen a palette of browns, focused around our beautiful bitter chocolate repello suede. The almond calf accentuates the lines of the straps and, with Spring in mind, lightens the overall look, a lightness carried on by the natural sole edge.

The finishing touch is the cast brass buckle, appropriately of equestrian heritage.

I’m currently working on a future Shoe of the Month in a rather unusual leather; Capybara.

I first discovered the leather on a pair of antique Gaucho boots, and was won over by the beautifully soft suede-like handle and rich ginger-honey hue.

The Capybara is a semi-aquatic mammal found wild in much of South America. Capybara is most commonly used in South America for footwear, leather accessories and even saddles. The leather is particularly prized for making fine gloves due to its unusual characteristic of stretching in just one direction, providing a wonderful superior quality of fit.

The leather became popular with society gentlemen in 1922 when Mountbatton brought a rather splendid pair of Capybara and Buffalo boots back from his honeymoon in the Americas.

The Capybara skin is remarkably strong, and yet beautifully plump, soft and pleasant to wear against the skin. With these qualities in mind I plan to use Capybara on a soft, simple unlined moccasin shoe which will show off this beautiful unusual leather at its best.

September is fast approaching, which means the end of summer, unpacking our autumn jumpers, and a new Boot of the Month.

As our designer, Annejkh, has posted previously the big story for this boot is leather. It’s made from a type of leather called Kudu that was produced in a tannery that disappeared more than 25 years ago. See her original post here.

Annejkh and I have been arguing about whether we should do the boot in a grey or tan. So we made samples of both versions. We still haven’t decided which one we should release, or if we should offer both. Any comments or thoughts would be much appreciated. Here are the two options:

Grey: Dark, rugged, and a bit more tonal in colour. This version will look like an antique pair of work boots from the very first wear. 

Tan: This colour is something special. The deep gouges in the shrunken leather are contrasted very strongly between the lighter tan base and the darker brown welts. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Both boots are going to be finished with a skeleton lining in matching Kudu leather and a purple velvet from our favorite cloth makers, Scabal. The inscription will be hand written on a square of French calf that is stitched into the lining. 

Let us know which version you prefer or whether we should do them both.