ORBISSHOEMAKERS & BOOTMAKERS IN LONDON 12 shops in the atlas.Illustration
Shoemakers & Bootmakers in London
12 stores · curated ORBIS register
Foster & Son contributes bespoke footwear and bootmaking to this London selection through a business founded in St James's in 1840. Freed of London makes pointe and dance shoes in London, with individual makers marking the soles of their work. G.J. Cleverley offers bespoke shoes built around hand-carved wooden lasts, with ready-to-wear options alongside its Royal Arcade atelier service.
Browns brings designer clothing and fine jewellery together at its Brook Street boutique in London's Mayfair, within a listed townhouse. Its rooms also display shoes and accessories alongside selected homeware, with personal-shopping appointments available in dedicated styling suites. The business launched on South Molton Street in 1970, a separate chapter from its present Brook Street setting.
Best for Multi-brand designer fashion and personal shopping in Mayfair
Browns has played a documented role in London fashion retail across five decades. Its official history records a 2016 rebrand after roughly forty years under the earlier identity, followed by the opening of Browns East in Shoreditch in 2017. That experimental boutique mixed established designers with newer talent in a gender-neutral space. In 2018 Browns partnered with the British Fashion Council's NEWGEN initiative, continuing its support for emerging designers. A year later, the retailer launched Conscious, an edit focused on brands and products framed around their future environmental impact. The history also describes temporary Nomad projects, including a Berlin presentation in an abandoned supermarket. In 2020 the company marked fifty years in business. These milestones explain the current shop's structure. Designer womenswear and menswear remain central, but homeware, fine jewellery, made-to-order services and personal shopping extend the offer. Browns Brook Street and the 123V restaurant represent the present physical expression of a retailer that has repeatedly used new formats. The merchant's defining story is not category breadth alone; it is the repeated pairing of major houses with new design talent and experimental retail settings.
Founded 1840 in St James's, moved to 83 Jermyn Street in 1966; known in the trade as 'the shoemaker's shoemaker', it also crafts Ministerial Despatch Boxes for UK and foreign governments.
Best for Bespoke boots, heritage
Foster & Son was founded in 1840 in St James's, London, close to the Royal Household and the gentlemen's clubs whose clientele the bespoke boot- and shoemaking workshop was built to serve. The firm moved premises twice before settling at 83 Jermyn Street in 1966, where its workshop still operates. During the Second World War, in 1941, the firm's proprietor, Mr. Foster, was killed by a bomb at Waterloo station; the same period saw another bootmaker, Charles Chester, lose his own premises to a direct hit, and a shared leather merchant introduced the two firms, which combined operations and moved in with Mrs. Foster at a workshop on Eagle Place. Foster & Son is known in the trade as 'the shoemaker's shoemaker,' and alongside bespoke footwear it has made Ministerial Despatch Boxes for UK and foreign governments and dignitaries. The company remains in private English ownership, one of a small number of London bespoke shoemaking houses with a continuous history back to the 19th century.
Bespoke shoemaker trading from the Royal Arcade off Old Bond Street, Mayfair, since 1958; hand-carved wooden lasts and the Churchill-associated 'Churchill II' oxford, with its elasticated side gusset, remain signatures alongside a ready-to-wear line.
Best for Bespoke Shoes
G.J. Cleverley has operated from 13 The Royal Arcade, 28 Old Bond Street in Mayfair since 1958. Its best-known historical client is Winston Churchill, for whom the house developed a shoe with an elasticated side gusset and imitation laces - a design still sold today as the 'Churchill II.' Every bespoke commission starts with a personal fitting and a wooden last carved specifically for the customer's foot, kept on file for future orders; the firm's ready-to-wear collection is drawn from the same bespoke lasts and made using comparable leathers and hand-finishing techniques. Construction methods are described by the firm as largely unchanged for over sixty years.
Mayfair bespoke shoemaker founded 1958 by George Cleverley after 38 years shoemaking for Tuczek on Clifford Street; creator of the chisel-toed 'Cleverley shape.' Business continues under George Glasgow Jr. at The Royal Arcade near Savile Row.
Best for Bespoke shoes, Cleverley shape
George Cleverley was born in 1898 into a shoemaking family and apprenticed in the trade from age 15. From 1920 he spent 38 years working for the Austro-Hungarian shoemaker Nikolaus Tuczek on Clifford Street in Mayfair, a firm whose clients included Winston Churchill. In 1958, Cleverley left to found his own business on Cork Street in Mayfair, where he developed the graceful, chisel-toed 'Cleverley shape' that became his signature. He continued working into his early 90s and died in 1991. The business survives him and today operates under George Glasgow Jr. from premises in The Royal Arcade, near Savile Row.
The red-carpet shoemaker — Romy pumps, crystal straps and London evening glamour under Sandra Choi’s long creative reign. Past-season pumps and evening styles land at The Mall outlet, Leccio Reggello, outside Florence.
Best for Occasion shoes with red-carpet pedigree.
Jimmy Choo the company was born in 1996 when Vogue accessories editor Tamara Mellon partnered with Jimmy Choo, the Malaysian-born East London couture shoemaker whose bespoke pumps already dressed Princess Diana. The insight was editorial: red-carpet culture was about to become the world's runway, and it would need a shoe brand native to it. The Oscars proved her right within seasons.
Sandra Choi — Choo's niece, in the atelier from the start — became creative director and has run the design language for the entire modern era: the Romy pump's clean line, crystal-strapped sandals, the Bing mule, bridal that owns the aisle. Mr. Choo sold his stake early; Mellon exited in 2011; the brand passed through private equity to Capri Holdings in 2017 for £896 million.
Choi's quarter-century reign is the industry's quiet record — few signatures have been guarded so long by one hand. London glamour, engineered for flashbulbs, still the name a limousine door expects.
John Lobb Ltd at 9 St James's Street is the family-run London bespoke shoemaker, separate from the Hermès-owned Paris-derived business. Its process begins with measured feet and a carved personal last before specialist makers construct the shoes. The last is retained for later pairs, and customers discuss the fitting process and timing as part of the commission.
Best for Bespoke footwear fitted to individual measurements at John Lobb in London
John Lobb Ltd at 9 St James's Street is the family-run London bespoke shoemaker. It is separate from the Hermès-owned business that grew from the Paris branch. The London shop's history records a Regent Street opening in 1866 and a later move into St James's, rather than making the current address the starting point of every chapter.
Bespoke work begins with a fitter recording the customer's feet. A last-maker then carves a wooden model from those measurements and observations. The pattern cutter works from that last and the chosen style, after which leather selection and the construction of the upper involve other specialist craftspeople.
The maker joins the upper with the sole and heel, and fitted wooden shoe trees help retain the finished shape. The personal last is kept for future pairs. This is a commissioned process, so an enquiry should begin with fitting and timing rather than an assumption of immediate stock. The house's craft account describes work taking months; confirm the schedule for the actual order directly with the workshop.
London footwear label founded in 2015 by Tommy Mallet and Evren Ozkarakasli, making leather trainers with elevated materials at accessible prices; styles are named after London streets and stocked by Selfridges, Harrods and Saks Fifth Avenue.
Best for London leather trainers and engineered soles
Mallet London was founded in 2015 by Tommy Mallet, a reality-TV personality who wanted a shoe he loved but couldn't afford and decided to make an affordable alternative himself, and Evren Ozkarakasli, who grew up inside his family's London textile manufacturing business. The brand's trainers use leather and premium materials at a lower price point than traditional luxury sneaker houses, and its silhouettes are named after London streets and neighbourhoods. Mallet has built distribution through major department stores and multi-brand retailers, with product carried by Selfridges, Harrods, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, and coverage has noted early recognition including a Forbes 30 Under 30 listing for Tommy Mallet. The company operates primarily as a direct-to-consumer and wholesale footwear label rather than a single physical storefront.
Spanish designer of women's luxury footwear. Known for the Hangisi pump. Born in the Canary Islands and based in London.
Best for Hangisi pumps and hand-lasted women's footwear.
Manolo Blahnik was born in the Canary Islands to a Spanish mother and Czech father, and it was Diana Vreeland who aimed him: reviewing his 1971 portfolio, she declared he should do "shoes, just shoes." London got the result — the Old Church Street shop opened in 1973 and remains the mothership of the most famous name in women's footwear.
He still draws every shoe by hand and carves his own lasts, and the results carry his signatures: the Hangisi's jeweled buckle on satin (Carrie Bradshaw's proposal shoe — Sex and the City made "Manolos" a common noun), the BB pump's perfect plainness, mules descending from his early Ossie Clark collaborations. Production is Italian, standards are his alone, and the CFDA, British Fashion Council and a CBE have all said their piece.
Family-owned still — his niece Kristina runs the company — the house sells what Blahnik has drawn for five decades: the shoe as small architecture, frivolity executed with total seriousness.
Men’s luxury fashion platform with curated designer menswear, footwear, watches, grooming and lifestyle, now operating as one of the luxury segments within LuxExperience.
Best for Curated luxury polos; Curated luxury menswear
Founded in London in 2009, THE OUTNET is an active online retailer specializing in discounted past-season designer fashion, including clothing, dresses, shoes, bags and accessories from international labels. The platform continues to trade under new ownership after its assets moved from LuxExperience to The O Group in April 2026.
Best for Discounted past-season designer clothing, shoes, bags, and accessories
THE OUTNET launched in London in 2009 as a sister site to NET-A-PORTER, created by the same team to sell past-season womenswear and menswear from established designers at a discount. It originally drew its stock from NET-A-PORTER's own unsold inventory, though in more recent years the majority of merchandise has been sourced directly from brands rather than passed down from its sister site. THE OUTNET operated for over a decade as part of what became the YOOX NET-A-PORTER Group, later restructured under the holding company LuxExperience. In October 2025, LuxExperience agreed to sell the assets powering THE OUTNET - including its brand rights, customer data, inventory and US distribution center - to The O Group, an investment group backed by Joseph Edery and Ritesh Punjabi; the sale, valued at roughly $30 million, closed in April 2026.
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