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In today’s day and age we see a trend where brands “take home” a larger part of the sales and sell directly to consumers through their own stores and webshop, and cut back on retailers. It may seem clever and logic, since a larger part of the margin can be kept for the manufacturer, but one should not underestimate what having good retailers can bring to the table. Thoughts on this in today’s article.
Hear Leon Fan, one of the founders of the famous Chinese shoe store Medallion Shoes, about how they have worked to become so successful, and about things like the Chinese classic quality shoe market in general and about the increasingly interesting field of quality shoe brands and shoemakers coming out of China.
Many questions came up after the fact that the British shoe manufacturer Alfred Sargent have gone into liquidation went public. In this large open-hearted interview with Paul Sargent, part-owner and Factory Manager at the now closed company, you’ll get answers to most of them. The history of why the company ended up where they are, what will happen with the Alfred Sargent brand, and what will happen with the factory. Most importantly – this is not the end for the Rushden factory, Sargent will once again show that they are the phoenix bird of Northampton.
The famous British shoemaking firm Alfred Sargent has gone bust. After not being able to pay its debts and becoming insolvent, the company was put in what’s called “voluntary liquidation” two weeks ago. The fine company out of Rushden, Northampton, have been in big troubles and managed to climb back again before, but this is their toughest situation yet.
As we head towards one year living under the shadow of a pandemic, it becomes increasingly clear that the quality shoe business is one of the production industries that suffers hard. Now, if ever, is the time for all of us who enjoy great shoes to do all we can to support the brands and retailers that we love, and make those purchases that may prove crucial to save jobs or even whole companies. Read about why the coming months and what we do now will be so important.
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The tougher the competition gets – the more doubtful the marketing gets. One of the things that brands tend to use more and more in this day and age is dropping numbers on how long it takes to make the shoes, how long time that have been spent to develop new models, and similar. Numbers that are extremely exaggerated compared to reality.
People often talk about how things were better before, and about the many challenges around today for the quality shoe industry (I’m definitely one of them). But if we zoom out a bit, it’s a fact that today is a golden age to be interested in quality shoes, in all price ranges, from €150 Goodyear welted to €4,000 full bespoke, the options and quality-price ratio available is better than in a long, long time.
The first big player in the classic shoe industry that might fall due to corona seems to be British Foster & Son. They closed their factory this summer, now they are according to unconfirmed info to close their Jermyn Street store where their bespoke workshop has been based as well. Here’s a summary of what we know and the most credible rumours.
NOTE: NEW AND CORRECTED INFO ON THE TOPIC HAS BEEN ADDED FROM FOSTER & SON, SEE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE.
There’s branches of people within “the classic shoe world” who are skeptical against factory-made Goodyear welted shoes in general and all types of shortcuts from making “the best shoes possible”, which ideally would be fully handmade bespoke of absolute best quality. Thing is, this industry, all of it, needs to have those who take these shortcuts – here’s why.
An increasing amount of new brands are introduced which all market themselves as offering shoes comparable to much higher-priced shoes, since they “cut out the middlemen”. This, is more or less just false advertising. These brands themselves are the middleman, and the difference in actual margins compared to the traditional quality shoe brands are small. Here’s why.
