3 a.m. starts usually mean one of two things to me; we're off on holiday and slept approx. zero hours or I'm traveling the length of the country for a worthy event. This time it was the latter, as a few weeks back I was invited for a tour around the Loake Shoemakers factory in Kettering, Northamptonshire. The British shoemaker has been producing handmade shoes on our isles for over 130 years, and are arguably one of the most recognised in their field.
My earliest memory of Loake involved my Grandad; a working-class cockney born in the 1930s. He wore Loake shoes all his life. Back then people saved for quality and something which could be repaired easily. I'd guess he had the same pair of smart shoes for 40 years. I remember sitting by his feet, playing with my toys cars (my Grandad was a footballer-turned car factory manager), he'd always wear black Oxford shoes on without fail. We called them his "Aladdin" shoes, as he'd worn them so much the toes had curled up.
Along with a couple of other menswear writers I headed off into the heart of the factory - a building which was alive with buzzing machinery, decades of stories and a passion for the art of shoemaking.
As we were shown around each working department by Managing Director, Andrew Loake, it quickly became apparent that the Loake factory was like no other I'd visited in the past. This was a impressively slick operation, with each station ran like clockwork. The actual process which goes into creating a handmade Loake shoe was baffling, and takes skills which can only be attained if you truly become a student of the profession.
It takes 200+ operations (factory-speak for an individual process) for each pair of Loake shoes to be considered complete and ready to be shipped. We saw a pair of brogues which had been stopped at 70 operations; they could have called it a day at that, as it was perfectly formed. But the Kettering-based shoemakers have learned a thing or two since first opening in 1880, having fine-tuned their process into creating something which is unmistakably Loake.
The subject of British manufacturing and outsourcing products would inevitably be mentioned, a part of the business which a lot of consumers feel frustrated + let down about. Claim from brands to be "Made in England", only to find out it's a part of their "branding", but actually being produced in South Asia. Loake admit to outsourcing certain styles for a simple reason - if Italians are renowned for producing the best quality driving moccasins, then they will work with that factory to produce the perfect Loake driving shoe, and so forth. Northamptonshire is synonymous with more traditional styles like the Country Brogue, Oxford and Derby, so that is where they will be produced. Each pair is stamped with its true country of origin, without fail. Transparency is what consumers deserve.
It's a subject which MD Andrew Loake could talk about at length - a truly fascinating man, with shoemaking in his blood. That's a passion you can't mimic. I could have listened to him talk for hours, but time was short and we all dashed to our respective offices. My 5.5 hours train journey home wasn't something I was especially looking forward to, but it was soon cleared from my mind and replaced with the thoughts of wearing a pair of Made in England shoes to our wedding, knowing exactly who has made them.
To find out more about Loake visit here. Thank you for reading - Mat.
