FootJoy
Since 1856
Eidechsenleder – Lizard
Plain Frint Oxford
Special Order- Street Schuh – Circa 1980
Euro 1220

With the closing in 2008 of the last American-based FootJoy plant, this extraordinarily lovely and luxurious street model based on the famous identical golf model is most likely among the very last we will ever see again. When it was available from FootJoy -please read below-this custom masterpiece cost $1500 plus tax and required up to 5 months for delivery. Golfers the world round know that the finest traditional golf shoes are made and have been made throughout the 20th century by one shoemaker,The FootJoy Company. FootJoy began its operation as the Burt & Packard Shoe Company founded in Brockton Massachusetts in 1856. In 1927 the company took the name of its premier line of shoes, the FootJoy. Since then they have been the leading golf shoe on the PGA tour, the # 1 selling golf shoe in England and theundisputed leader in the manufacture of Golf Shoes in the world. The vintage and antique FootJoys represent the pinnacle of craftsmanship and luxury, and are highly prized by collectors and aficionado of fine street and golf shoes.This and two or three other Lizard FootJoys among my listings are perhaps the finest and the rarest golf and street shoes to be seen outside of a museum….and certainly the most beautiful. The skins are artfully arranged, with fine and coarse patterned pieces distributed for maximum effect, and all perfectly matched between shoes. I know of no other shoe or shoemaker, antique or contemporary, who can compete with these, the FootJoy flagship shoes, for complexity or perfection of design.
I have learned recently that in March 2008 FootJoy closed it last American-based factory in Brockton, Massachusetts. While the firm continues to produce large numbers of sneaker-like golf shoes in its off-shore facilities, this last bastion of old-world craftsmanship in golf shoes is relegated to history, and with it the last source for us of special-order lizard and other exotic-skinned golf and street shoes, the finest in the world. For the moment, a small coterie of craftsmen remain to perform repairs but the 103 highly skilled craftsmen, some of whom had worked in the Field Street Factory since the introduction of the “Classic” line of shoes in 1959, are gone. Shoemaking became a major industry in Brockton in the 1880s, and remained so well into the 20th century, but with the exception of the FootJoy plant, shoemaking has already been extinct in Brockton for decades. Once more the painstaking traditional Goodyear welted shoe is driven out of the market by the far cheaper cemented shoe.

Si vous êtes intéressé par les plus grandes références dans le domaine de la chaussure de luxe pour homme de fabrication artisanale, par les noms des ateliers les plus traditionnels, Edward Green, Crockett & Jones, Alden, Grenson, John Lobb, Allen Edmonds, Church’s English Shoes, et, en particulier, les exceptionnels – mais en France trop peu connu – bottiers américains FLORSHEIM, FOOTJOY et HANOVER, CORDWAINER, etc.-n’hésitez pas à me consulte. Etant donné que mes textes figurant sont pour la plupart rédigés en anglais ou en allemand, je répondrais volontiers de manière plus détaillée à vos questions en français, en vous demandant de montrer de l’indulgence pour mon français approximatif.