Wherever your feet may take you they need to take you there in style and sophistication. Founded on 1st May 1973 in Northampton, Church’s is a family shoemaking business with roots dating as far back as 1674. In 1881 they were the first to produce differently shaped left and right shoes (now the industry standard), and are known today as one of the finest men’s shoemakers.
In the space of a few years, Church’s was transformed from a craft workshop into a benchmark firm for high-quality footwear. Synonymous with British heritage, traditional craftsmanship and classic style, Church’s takes great pride in producing high quality leather shoes. Taking up to eight weeks to produce, each pair of Church’s shoes is individually handmade.
The high-end English footwear manufacturer has an estimated production capacity of 5000 pairs per week, 70% of which are exported all over the world. Besides production sold to resellers and individual customers, the company also has several of its own retail stores, including one in Jermyn Street, London, George Street, Edinburgh, and Pacific Place, Hong Kong. Church’s is a great British success story.
Along with tailoring and shirt-making, high-quality shoemaking is one of the three pillars of the dapper-chap look first described by a Frenchmen as le style Anglais.If you want a pair of proper, masculine, English-looking and English-made, last-for-life shoes, the best in the business has got to be Church’s.
Whatever your preference – brogues, Oxfords, Derbys, desert boots, you name it – these are beautiful shoes. At an average of about £300 a pair, they are worth every penny.
In 1999, the company was acquired by the international fashion group Prada, more recently the group sold a 45% stake to Equinox, a private investment fund. Currently, the market ambition of the company is to further expand itself in the high quality footwear sector and to introduce new clothing and accessory lines.
That Northampton factory has been modernised; Prada have given it a fashion patina. This summer, it opened a women’s shoe shop just down the road from the men’s flagship on Bond Street.
Three years ago, it dug around in the Church’s archive and found magnificent, 1929 two-tone brogues – with unnecessary tassels. This they whisked back to Milan, and set about recreating. Now the Italian-made Church’s Shanghai shoe – which comes in at £530 – is one of its most in-demand lines. Each pair is made by one worker, who spends around 200 hours going through 500 construction-stages. They are wonderful to look at – and rubber-soled to boot – but they are as much a product of Prada as they are of Church’s.
For more information, please visit the official website here.
