“Don’t wear brown shoes if you want to walk into City job” was a headline in The Times this week. It manages to be both completely wrong and entirely right.
In addition to avoiding brown shoes the article advises not wearing a white shirt, which apparently shows a lack of confidence; making sure your belt is the same colour as your shoes and not wearing a shirt with a pocket, because it makes you look like a janitor. Let’s start with the shoes. For decades I’ve been wearing brown suede desert boots from Bradshaw and Lloyd. They describe them as a Sanders Holborn chukka boot in premium snuff suede with a wide G fitting. (The wide fitting is important for me.) I do not wear them with a blue suit, only grey or Prince of Wales check and I took heart in the early days from Ken Clarke and his Hush Puppies. Here he is in suede shoes, Garrick Club tie and typically jovial form.
I don’t think it is a good look wearing a belt with a suit. If the waistband doesn’t fit, a pair of braces adjusts the break of the trousers over the shoes more accurately. I can see nothing wrong with white shirts. In the old days they were de rigueur. The only style I cannot abide is when the collar does not match the rest of the shirt. Finally, I used to avoid shirts with pockets but now find them useful for specs.
After committing all these sartorial solecisms I held down a City job for thirty-nine years. However, The Times is right: don’t wear brown shoes if you want to walk into a City job. My desert boots with sensible rubber soles were much more comfortable for the two hour walk home across London from my desk in the City. I seldom walked into my City job as it meant leaving home at 6.00 am.
We have had this before but it deserves a re-run.
I bought a pair of Loake’s “Chukka boots” in dark brown suede many years ago.
They have “Dainite” rubber soles.
I’m particularly fond of them; and I have worn them occasionally with a suit similar to the one Ken Clarke wears above.
These are the shoes I wear most often.
Still a great song!
From the Telegraph today:
“After the First World War, when men were scarce, my great-aunt Josephine was lucky enough to find herself a handsome young suitor whose prospects were good and who loved her. Alas, one day he made the mistake of visiting her in town, wearing a navy blue suit with brown shoes. The engagement was called off immediately, and Josephine remained a spinster to her death.” (Jemima Lewis in Features).