The London Lounge

Is it ever OK to cancel an order in progress?

I placed an order with a well regarded bespoke shoemaker. But my experience has been been pretty disappointing. Fit has been bad and style preferences have been repeatedly forgotten. The makers are nice and want to keep trying to get it right but I don't know if I still have faith.

Has anyone ever been forced to cancel an order in progress?

No experience with beapoke shoes myself but I wonder if they refund your deposit
or if you just cut your losses and they keep the deposit but lose the
the rest of the order.

I certainly don't see anything wrong with walking away from
the rest of the order but you probably feel you deserve
a full refund given the poor performance.

I would be curious to know what experienced members think you should expect.

I did not cancel a bespoke shoe order but my wife had ordered a bespoke brogue shoe from one of the major London men's shoemakers and did not like the shape or style of what they produced at their first attempt. They were very understanding, changed the design to a loafer shoe and did not make any charge for the original.

The first bespoke shoe can take forever as they need to get your last right which can result in a number of visits to the maker.

If this is WS Foster, be prepared to fight tooth-n-nail to get back your deposit. I have had a very poor experience with them.

Thanks for all your thoughts. The update is that I informed the company of my dissatisfaction and they suggested a full refund. I was a little disappointed because I'd been looking forward to my new shoes for over a year and was hoping they might offer me some different options but I think, all things considered, I can't really complain.

Badden, I'm surprised to hear Foster was difficult about refunding your deposit - what were the circumstances?

A universal truth which bears repeating - It's always preferable to be in close proximity to whomever is making your suits/shoes/shirts. Nothing tops being able to pop in and check on how things are going or talk things out in person.

The other thing that occurred to me is that the london bespoke shoe world is really, really small and that's not a good thing. When a market is pretty much down to two or three businesses (down from hundreds only about years ago) it doesn't make for a competitive environment and I believe it's natural that price, service and product suffers because of it. Of course my experience is limited and every maker is different but in my experience I did notice a marked difference between Savile Row and Jermyn Street.