Anatomy of a Letter @ FT

Two-tone mix

and a palace shoe-fitting

By Richard Carreño
Published: February 3 2007 02:00 Last updated: February 3 2007 02:00

From Mr Richard Carreño.
Sir, As with most fashions, hardly anything is new. Your review of wearing two "different" shoes at the same time ("Walking all over fashion", FT Weekend, January 20/21) reminds me of an Easter Sunday, many years ago, when I showed up at Mass wearing one black shoe and one brown one - otherwise they were identical cap-toe lace-ups.

It was my habit, then as now, to order shoes in multiples. It was not my practice to sport differing colours. (That was a consequence, I suppose, of not enough early morning coffee.)

Was I alone in adopting the two-tone look? Hardly. I had occasion soon after that Easter morning to speak to the late, great Eric Lobb, then managing director of Lobb bootmakers in St James's, about my footwear faux pas. Think nothing of it, he declared. He was renowned for the brown-black look in St James's - all quite deliberately, as well.

Lobb said the attraction of various combinations of black and brown were firmly established in the 1920s. Lobb himself said he even wore the two-tone combination once when he was commanded by the Duke of Edinburgh for a shoe-fitting at Buckingham Palace. Prince Philip thought nothing of it. The year? 1976.
Richard Carreño,
Philadelphia, PA 19103, US

BACK STORY

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:19:49 -0800 (PST)
From: Anno 1872 <johnbullesq@yahoo.com>
Subject: Two-tone shoes
To: weekend.feedback@ft.com

Re: Shoes

Sure.

All best,

Richard Carreño

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Dear Richard Carreno

Thank you for your letter about two-tone shoes and the late great Eric
Lobb.

Mike Skapinker says you are content for the letter to be published. I have
two questions:

1/ A senior editor is quizzical about the letter, even to the extent of
suspecting it is a hoax. Is there any way you can comprehensively zap (in
two tones or more) his scepticism?

2/ Can you provide your outline postal address (just town/city plus state
and zip code).

Thanks in advance for your help.

John Munch

Deputy letters editor
Financial Times

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Philadelphia

29 January 2007

John:--

Will try, if the effort pays off.

Hoax? I don't think so. You guys are so skeptical. Naughty. Naughty.

So here goes:

First, the shoe mix-up at Christ Church, Pomfret, Connecticut, was a first-rate cock-up. My daughter, Abigail, a youngin' at the time, had a howl over that. I have no idea what the padre, the Rev. Mr. James Birdsall, thought of this!

Why, the late-great Eric Lobb? Well, have you ever heard of a shoe bone? Young chaps, probably not. Well, Eric Lobb provided me with my first deer bone for working my hunt boots. Frankly, an admission: I wasn't sure about boning boots until I read John Ohara's A Rage to Live, and I followed up with Lobb.

I was a journeyman hack at the time -- from paper to paper -- and was quite interested in the men's shoe industry. Someone I knew, the late-great George Frazier (you might remember him from the The Boston Globe, Esquire, and the rest?) told me that Eric Lobb was the go-to guy on shoes. (So was my ex wife, who used to get her polo boots from Lobb. I think, in those days (we're going' back a bit, don't you know?), the Lobb fitter, per my ex, used to show up at The Drake in Chicago).

Maybe it Hunter Lobb, at the Palmer House in Boston, who told me that George had racked up quite a bill? Was the dosh forthcoming? Gosh, if I knew. What I was interested in -- for an article for the Financial Page of The Boston Globe -- that George had a left foot that was a size shorter than his right one. The amazing' things one learns, right?

Anyway, just about that time -- actually 15 September 1981 -- my son second son was born -- and Nancy (the ex) and I decide we'll name him Hunter. I was smitten by the name after meeting Hunter Lobb in Boston. (Later told him the tale in London, when Abigail and I, in St. James's, were buying hats at Lock's (and she got the pro-forma weigh-in at Berry Bros. down the street). Hunter. Horses. Well, you get it.

So it was. So it goes.

Richard

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Richard

You've convinced me....

Thanks for your great note (which won't be published, just the original
letter).

All best.

John M

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Addendum: Another Twist to the Tale

The Last Shall Be First: The Colourful Story of John Lobb The St. James's Bootmakers, Brian Dobbs, 1978.

In 1980, Eric Lobb sends me a copy of the above book. On page 142 is the following:

'The first time that Eric Lobb was called to visit His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh to measure him for a new pair of boots,... Eric was in the process of changing his own shoes.... Eric and Charlie dashed into St. James's Street, hailed a taxi and jumped into it. It was then Charlie pointed out that for the Royal Bootmaker to turn up wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe was not the best advertisements to present to a Very Important Customer.'

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Hunter IV

True, that the provenance of son Hunter's name was that chance encounter with Hunter Lobb in Boston in the 1970's. But there was more.

Hunter's full name is also fleshed out with suffix IV. Why? I suppose it's pretentious in one sense. But it has it literary roots, as well -- harking to John Steinbeck, who also titled his first born the 'IV.' Ditto George Frazier.