After nearly three years of pretty solid use one of my favourite pairs of Trickers was looking a little worse for wear. The shoe in question was a classic brogue stow boot in Marron antique. Over the course of their use the double leather sole had started to delaminate slightly and spread at the front the shoe. The rubber heel component had also worn away well into the leather.
Rather than take them to Trickers who tend to have long lead times for resoling and would no doubt recommend to unnecessarily replace the welt (which was in decent condition) I took them to my man in Doncaster; The Shoe Healer.
I’m going to write in more depth about Richard and his excellent team at The Shoe Healer in the coming weeks, but first I wanted to mention about the excellent job he did resoling these particular boots.
For the resoling I chose a red Dainite sole (due to their excellent durability and striking colour) mixed with a natural coloured leather. In order to achieve this Richard and his team took the edge off the Marron antique painted sole, cutting it back to the leather’s natural finish. Then they stripped the old heel and outsole away, retaining the welt and added a new leather outsole, the Dainite rubber, and added the new heel. The original Marron antique colour is retained at the top of the welt which makes for a pleasing, crisp colour change in to the edge of the natural leather.
Richard also replaced the stitching on the welt to the sole, which a lot of cobblers won’t do as not many have the machinery and skills to carry this out. On my brogues they’ve replaced it with a matching brown thread, but they mentioned they’d been tempted to finish it with a contrasting cream thread which I’ve seen them do on other examples to great effect. I kind of wished they’d gone for it and next time I might specify this.
The result has transformed an unremarkable, shabby pair of Trickers in to a fresh and unique pair of boots of my own creation and at almost a third of the cost of taking them directly to Trickers (who in my past experiences are always unpleasant and awkward to deal with).
More on The Shoe Healer soon, but in the meantime check out their website and their gallery of custom made Trickers they’ve produced for an international customer base.