A Fine Man Once Said:

"Part of the 10 million I spent on gambling, part of it on booze, and part of it on women. The rest I spent foolishly."

- George Raft





Monday, January 20, 2014

Fred Astaire's Foster & Son Spectators




Foster & Son's have established more of a presence online of late, via their own website  and blog, as well as some great posts on StyleForum featuring amazing images of models from their archives. Its always interesting to hear how extensively the archives are relied upon for new models, so it was doubly cool to hear that (a) Foster & Son had taken the time to create a copy of the spectator shoes that Fred Astaire ordered at some point during the 1930s; and (b) the shoe-maker is making a RTW model on Astaire's original order . I didn't think I needed another pair of spectators in brown and white suede, but this seems like a good reason to look into another pair.



Sometimes, when you see shoes from the 1930s, there's something dated about the style, be it the last, broguing, etc. But the timeless silhouette of these shoes is really quite striking, and the shape of the toe seems quite similar to Edward Green's 888 last or Gaziano & Girling's TG73. That is to say, more modern than the age of the shoes would suggest.



I wonder if the Astaire's original pair is in this pile somewhere . . .


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