The London Lounge

Arthur Sleep does offer a wide range of slippers in unusual colours and materials, not only that standard boring stuff: https://arthursleepers.co.uk/store/men/ If you want to design (and maybe even make) your own tapestry slippers, get in touch with Broadland Slippers , they will make you a pair fr...

Well, I know for certain, a few years back C&J used Kokos, but that might have changed. Back then, Kokos was probably the only shoe repair firm in London that would mount recessed metal toe pieces ("Lulus").

The work was done by an independent cobbler in Finchley Road.......I never asked the exact address, as at C&J's they are kind enough to pass also some of my non-C&J shoes on to him for repairs. I think you are talking about this firm (not on Finchley Road, but in East Finchley): http://www.kokos.co...

Most buttons are stitched-on by machine, so the cotton thread can either be parallel or crosswise. If a button on your Dockers has come off, just copy the way the other buttons have been done. If the buttons are stitched on by hand, you also have the choice of a "crow's foot" pattern (quite popular ...

I tried getting an appointment with Delos but got the run around. Apparently they are quite protective of him. I heard it took Hugo Jacomet quite a while to convince Berluti to get the interview with Parisian Gentlemen. It might be the other way round, Berluti (LVMH) is not protective of Delos, but...

Isn't the placket front standard for most Jermyn Street shirtmakers? It certainly is the standard for English day-shirts. You probably won't find a single ready-to-wear shirt with a plain front on Jermyn Street. The shirt with the plain front is far more popular in France and Italy. In Jermyn Stree...

My vote is for alpaca pile. It's usually llama or alpaca pile, but it could be any other wool. Don't think of a conventional woven cloth, but see it more as a tufted carpet. On one side there is the luscious pile, on the other side there is a mesh where the wool got tufted into. I believe, that mes...

Berk in London's Burlington Arcade has a quite large selection of classic, Scottish-made Ballantyne sweaters:

http://www.berkcashmere.co.uk/category. ... sting&id=9

But the prices are another thing! A plain 2-ply sweater does retail at GBP 500.

Rolf

Apparently, it’s the hot news on the French shoe forums, Anthony Delos has sold his firm to LVMH (owners of Berluti). His workshop will be owned by LVMH and Delos and his staff will be on the conglomerate’s payroll. I have no idea, whether LVMH wants to promote the name Delos as a bespoke maker (and...

......regarding the second row of stitches parallel to the upper broguing next to the laces on the inside of the right shoe? It shows clearly in the first and the third pictures and I thought they shouldn't be there. It could be something done on purpose (it's impossible to see it on the left shoe)...

Manself wrote:Does anyone know who painted this portrait of the Duke of Windsor......

The portrait was painted by John St Helier Lander in 1925.

http://www.guernsey-society.org.uk/donk ... ier_Lander

arkirshner wrote: BTW could you refer me to the source of the illustration as it no doubt will answer all my similar inquiries.

The illustration was taken from “Pattern Cutting”,

http://www.noblefootwear.com/Books%20Fo ... /book1.htm

published by Noble Footwear (Frank Jones)

As a rule of thumb, the toe cap is 2/3 of the distance between ‘vamp point‘(V) and ‘toe point’ (T). http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u27/bengal-stripe/technical/Toecap.jpg More than any other feature in shoe design, the vamp point is determined by fashion. Up to the 70s the ideal was a low vamp po...

Götz (or Götz-Service) in Göppingen/Swabia is probably the largest ’grindery’ (shoe components supplier) in the world. http://www.goetz-service.com/web/home.php?lang=us&nr=2&cartid=355013177556631304199184 Load down their catalogue and go to page 200, there you’ll find toe and heel irons. The ’Trium...

My guess would be, the ‘stick length’ of last 82 is about ½ size (4mm) longer than last 202. (Stick length, named after the measuring stick, is the overall length of a last, which quite frequently diverts from the size, although, in theory, the size should be the same as the total length of the last...