LUXURY SHOE BRAND TAKES MORE CONTROL OF ITS TRADITIONS
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Behind the footwear brand
J.M. Weston makes and sells mostly high-end men’s
shoes for business and leisure wear. One of its most
recent collections, Claridge, includes a wing-tip Oxford
brogue in black calfskin, a Derby in brown aniline
calfskin, a loafer and a boot, both in black calfskin, and
an Oxford in burgundy aniline calfskin. The company
describes these shoes as “a subtle link between tradition
and audacity”. The audacity comes from the work the
company is doing with footwear designers such as
Michel Perry, a name in his own right in the world of
women’s shoes in France for more than 20 years, but
who works with J.M Weston on men’s collections, and
with Paris-based music and fashion label Maison
Kitsuné, with which it also worked on a recent summer
collection, East Hampton. Tradition comes from the
company’s long history and its continuing commitment
to the values of its founder.
J.M. Weston, an unusual name for a French company,
was launched in Limoges in 1891 by a local
manufacturer, Edouard Blanchard. At the turn of the
new century, he sent his son Eugène to the US to study
Goodyear stitching techniques and ways to work width
variation into models, marking the path the company
would go down in the decades ahead. Today, between
three and seven different width options are available
for each half-size. The town that young Blanchard
fetched up in was Weston, Massachusetts, which
As well as luxury men’s shoes, J.M. Weston supplies boots to
the Republican Guard of the French Gendarmerie. Each officer
has the right to a new pair of Weston boots every two years.
CREDIT: MARIE-LAN NGUYEN/WIKIPEDIA