Vintage Edward Green for Paul Stuart: The Twickenham

 

The Twickenham

          The Uptown Dandy loves to spend his idle time scouring the internet and local thrift shops for vintage English and American shoes. Our very first post featured vintage and new old stock Johnston & Murphy Handmade 100s, and we followed that up with the thrifting post that featured our greatest shoe "catch" to date: a pair of barely worn Edward Green Cadogans that were basically a perfect fit and have since become a staple in our shoe rotation.

          Recently, The Uptown Dandy was fortunate enough to pick up a pair of vintage Edward Greens that were made for Paul Stuart on the old 201 last. This model was actually featured as the Kingston model in the "201 last" portion of the vintage Edward Green section of Volume III of the World of High End Men's Shoes:

          I contacted Edward Green for additional information and an employee at the factory in Northampton was kind enough to provide the original specifications for the shoes. As the form indicates, this pair was made in November 1985 for Paul Stuart. Fitted on the 201 last, the shoes were made of a "wheat calf" leather in Edward Green's chestnut antique color. Also, the "JH61" design notation indicates that the shoe was designed by John Hlustik, who took over the company in 1982.

          On the pair that I found, you can see the Paul Stuart logo impressed onto the insole of the shoe. Until now, I had seen Edward Greens made for Paul Stuart that stated that the shoes were made by Edward Green on the insole. This is the first pair I've seen that only has the Paul Stuart logo stamped on the insole.

          Inside the shoe, you can also see Edward Green's handwritten size and last information, indicating the shoe is a size 10D on the aforementioned 201 last. I'm not sure what the small numerical notation above the "D" width actually means. Its also unclear whether this is US or UK sizing, although the shoes do fit my size US 10D feet pretty comfortably.

          Aside from the typical wear-and-tear one would expect to find on a pair of 25 year old shoes, there were a few small tears at the back end of one shoe, probably from years of the shoe being taken on and off without a shoe horn. Aside from the creasing between the toe box and the vamp, the leather appeared to be in surprisingly good condition, with a few minor nicks here and there but no major scratches to be seen. For The Uptown Dandy, the only issue with these wonderful shoes were the utterly offensive brown "sneaker" type laces - luckily, those are easy enough to replace.

  

           As you can see from the picture below, the shoe appears to have been re-soled at some point in its life. This work probably precluded me from returning the shoes to Edward Green for a re-crafting, since the company apparently has a policy of not doing re-crafting or resoling work on shoes that have been worked on previously by another cobbler/shoe repair man. It was also not entirely clear whether the company is still in possession of the defunct 201 last for the size 10D, which would be necessary for re-crafting.

          That being said, we've been meaning to engage the re-soling services of Nick V. over at B. Nelson shoes in New York City for some time now, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. As we've heard (and seen) great things about B. Nelson's work, The Uptown Dandy is definitely looking forward to seeing the finished product in a few days.