John Lobb

The price reflects heritage, fine leathers and the patience of craft techniques the firm refused to mechanise even when its rivals did. A true bespoke pair, custom-built around wooden lasts shaped from your own measurements, typically starts around $6,500, and with proper care can last decades. Whether that is worth it depends on how much you value owning a piece of living shoemaking history versus buying several pairs from equally fine rivals for the same outlay.

Both sit among the finest shoemakers in the world, so the choice is about character rather than a clear winner. John Lobb still offers genuine bespoke, custom-made one pair at a time, with finishes that read a touch more modern and unusual. Edward Green is celebrated for precise, classic English shaping; if you want true bespoke, Lobb is the rarer path.

For most people the ready-to-wear collection, developed by the Hermès-owned Paris house, is the sensible entry point and gives you the house's craft without the bespoke commitment. The made-to-order and bespoke routes reward those who want a last shaped to their own feet, with only about 100 ready-to-wear pairs finished a day to begin with. Start with ready-to-wear, then graduate to bespoke once you know the house suits you.

The firm was founded in 1849 by John Lobb (1829–1895), who had opened his first store in Sydney, Australia, in 1854 before building his reputation as a bootmaker. He opened a London shop in 1866 and produced footwear for European royalty. The business has run continuously since then, passing to his son William and later led by Betsy Lobb.

Yes, and it confuses a lot of buyers. The original London bespoke workshop at 9 St James's Street remains family-owned and operates independently as John Lobb Limited. In 1976 the French branch was acquired by the Hermès Group, which built the ready-to-wear brand sold worldwide; both maintain the bespoke tradition, one in London, one in Paris.

It depends which John Lobb you mean. The family-owned London firm still produces handmade bespoke shoes one pair at a time at 9 St James's Street, while the Hermès-owned operation makes its shoes in Paris. The Paris house finishes only about 100 ready-to-wear pairs a day, a deliberately small output that protects the quality.

Each bespoke pair is custom made for the customer: measurements are taken of the feet, wooden lasts are then carved from those measurements, and the shoes are built around them. It is the same craft-first approach the firm chose over mechanisation more than a century ago. That individual fit is the heart of why bespoke Lobb starts around $6,500.

After Hermès was allowed to use the John Lobb name in 1976, the ready-to-wear collection debuted in 1982, complementing the older made-to-measure tradition. The first store dedicated to the line opened in Paris in 1990, and distribution has expanded around the world since. Before the 1980s, the business was custom-made work only, in London and Paris.

In June 2014 the Hermès Group appointed Paula Gerbase as John Lobb's first-ever Artistic Director. The role brought a single creative vision to the Hermès-owned ready-to-wear line. The London bespoke firm, by contrast, continues as an independent family business guided by its own workshop traditions.

The firm's customers include the British Royal Family, a relationship dating back to Queen Victoria, alongside Hollywood names such as Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington and Laurence Olivier. That royal-and-stage pedigree is part of the appeal for collectors. The London company was even the subject of a 1945 British Pathé film, Shoes for the Famous.

Treat them as the long-term investment they are: rotate pairs so the leather rests between wears, use shoe trees to hold their shape, and condition and polish the leather regularly. Shoes built by hand and resoleable by nature can genuinely last decades with this kind of attention. That longevity is a large part of the value argument over cheaper shoes you replace more often.