By Phillip D. Johnson
The new Grenson Men’s Fall/Winter 2013 Shoe Collection has been launched on the brand’s website and it’s a major expansion on the DNA of the brand. For the Fall/Winter 2013, Grenson shoes features new colors like navy blue, bottle green grain leather and fluor, all of which are quirky but wearable and also totally versatile.
All Grenson shoes are “Goodyear Welted”, a process invented in the 1800’s in England that is a time consuming way of making shoes, but this means that the product lasts longer than any other type of shoes. It also means that the shoe can be re-soled many times over making them a wonderful investment.
Grenson Shoes was started by William Green, born in 1835. Later in his teen years, his mother taught him the shoemaking trade so that he could help her to produce men’s boots at home. It was only a cottage-based business but at that time, but, at the time, shoemaking was still very much a cottage industry. He continued to help his mother until 1860 when he moved out of home and continued this is his own home until 1866.
In 1866, Green stopped producing shoes and boots in his house and instead became a “factor”. This essentially meant he went out to get the orders, find the materials and employ craftsmen to fulfill the orders. The obvious next step for him was to formalize this arrangement and set up a company, which became known as William Green & Son. Back and forth to London as part of his new role, William made more and more sales to wholesalers and it was not long before his men’s shoes and boots became famous for their quality, craftsmanship and durability.
The company attracted some of the finest shoe craftsmen in the business and William organized for the first factory to be opened in 1874. The “Greens Yard” factory was the first factory in the world to use the Goodyear welt construction method for manufacturing gentlemen’s shoes and “Green & Son” soon became Grenson, a powerful brand which still dominates the shoe industry today.
Twenty years on, in 1895, Grenson moved to larger premises to accommodate for the surge in demand which they experienced throughout the nineteenth century. The factory then on Queen Street was then–and remains–the heart of this thriving shoe business. William Green died In 1901, but he had left behind him such a solid foundation that the company continued to go from strength to strength during the twentieth century. The Queen Street factory was further enlarged and the “Grenson” brand was registered in 1913.
The new collection is totally on-trend on many fronts: color and colorways, style and is just an obvious move in line with the trend towards hard-edged footwear, even for men. The signature heavy soles also add that extra sense of solidness to the rest of your wardrobe. The fall/Winter 2013 collection is now available on the Grenson website.