Randy always wore them in My Name Is Earl too. Loved that show.

^ you may need to get in quick on the Padmore and Barnes shoes as rumours are abound they may not be with us much longer.
They have stopped taking orders from retailers for the Spring/Summer 14 range and only taking orders for existing stock.

I've been wearing my navy deadstock Clarks Padmore & Barnes Wallabee boots in Bay Area last week.   Perfect for walking around in there.   I got them off ebay where deadstock examples turn up regularly.

I could be wrong on this as I'm recalling what I read years ago here at the forum.  Padmore & Barnes is/was an Irish company that made wallabees that Clarks licenced I believe, they were reputed to be the best ones.  The ones I've picked up from USA are very nice with crepe soles and double stiching.

Last edited by An Unseen Scene (2014-02-17 12:36:32)

^ I've been digging around for a while now trying to piece the story together.
It's all a little bit more complicated than their PR version of the history would make out.

Padmore and Barnes started as a shoe manufacturer who's quirk was they produced the shoe parts and then sent them out locally for construction (issues of quality control meant they were never very successful as a shoe-maker), however this led to the company changing tack just after WW2 to just making components (mainly soles and heels) for other companies.
The Clarks connection appears to be that P&B had a patented process for producing the crepe soles and they became Clarks main supplier for desert boots, with Clarks eventually 'buying out' the company to gain the production patents.
The Wallabee comes from another one of P&B clients for crepe soles who made the Grasshopper in Germany/Austria, bringing a pair back to Clarks who quickly licensed the design and the Wallabee was born.

The revival of P&B as a brand has very little to do with the original company, the naming of the current shoes is based on the 'production' numbers for the sole and not a whole shoe.
There are adverts (without pictures unfortunately) for a 'natural last'/crepe sole orthopaedic walking shoe produced by P&B pre-WW2 but no info is given to the styling of the shoe, but the best I can find out is it was more like a ' Clarks Desert Trek' shoe but without the seam down the center.

As I know out more I'll post my findings here.

Very interesting Acton,

It was always known that the P&B (Erlandia) shoes were made of much better materials than the current Vietnamese Clarks shoes.
I had a couple of pairs of their 'Willow' (the Clarks weaver) and they were so soft to wear, soft sticky crepe like Playboys.

Last edited by DAO (2014-02-18 20:12:57)

nope, I've seen those and they ain't pretty..