The Insider Column: The Shoe Style Guide SS15

THE INSIDER

when the shoe fits

The modern man’s daily routine calls for a variety of footwear options, according to The Style Report’s columnist Jonathan Heaf. Here, choose your shoe style for any occasion.

Still-life photographs by Richy Leeson. Fashion by Chris Hobbs.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you had a butler. A reliable rock of a man. A man, dressed top to tail in white tie, who would break life’s daily wave of choredom with a stoic diligence and an ability to polish glass and silver exceedingly well. An Alfred J. Pennyworth sort to your Bruce Wayne.

He would wake you gently in the morning, pulling back heavy window drapes to flood your bedroom with a dappled sunlight. He’d know to, sweetly yet with a suitably insistent tone, call last night’s date – now a hot mess under the duvet next to you – an Uber Lux. Then he would bring you The New York Times, ironed flat just as you like it, together with buttered wheat toast, a freshly sliced Californian pink grapefruit, a cold-pressed carrot and kale juice and a pot of freshly ground Monmouth coffee. After you’ve showered, he would pass you a clean white cotton oxford shirt and then be on hand to run through your various shoe options for the day ahead.

Ah, footwear. Like sex and roast potatoes, a man can’t have too much. Say you wanted to start the day with some aerobic exercise, perhaps a Crossfit class, a trip to Soul Cycle, or a yoga lesson, your trusty butler – let’s call him Cavendish as an homage to Bond villain Sir Hugo Drax’s trusty lieutenant in Moonraker, shall we? – would then offer up a trainer that, depending on your agenda, was either practical (the Montego by Moncler), practical yet with an urbane edge (the Field by Burberry Prorsum) or absurdly impractical yet devastatingly cool (the Cunningham low-top leather trainer by Mr. Hare). If all the exercise you planned on doing was giving your ego a massage by chatting up the lithe receptionist at your local gym, best to have Cavendish serve up something truly eye-catching: Balenciaga’s orange Monochrome perforated high-top trainers would be an easy win here.

You’re either going to have to decide on one pair of shoes per day, or… invest in a pretty serious piece of luggage in which to lug all those shoe options.

With the gym routine over, having changed out of your Lycra and into work attire before you meet a pal for the first Martini of the day, it’s best you head into the office to make sure everything is ticking over. Right on cue, here’s trusty Cavendish with your driving shoes for the journey in – a choice between Tod’s Gommino suede in mustard or maybe a comfy desert boot from Tomas Maier. Once at work, Cavendish should pack you a good strong derby (Paul Smith is tough to beat for practicality and élan), a shiny monk strap (the single buckle from Church’s would go with any suit in grey or navy) or a Napoli high-shine leather brogue from Dolce & Gabbana.

The best thing about having a butler, of course, is the fact that he is there to pamper to your capriciousness, to snap into action at your every whim. If you decided, for example, that once you’re out on the town you need a heavier boot to continue round your usual stomping grounds, with the swiftness of a text, dear Cavendish can be there with either a chelsea boot (look to Lanvin or John Varvatos), or an ankle boot (from Saint Laurent or Alexander McQueen).

Of course, the reality is, although we’d all like a Cavendish to call our own, few of us could afford for our footwear fickleness to be waited on hand and, well, foot. This means you’re either going to have to decide on one pair of shoes per day, or you’ll have to invest in a pretty serious piece of luggage in which to lug all those shoe options around town in.