I saw a few pairs of G&Gs when I was in Japan at the beginning of the year and they are really beautiful shoes.
The finish is quite astonishing - even the black shoes have enormous depth to the finish. Looking at them made me feel as though I was looking down into a slightly moonlit sea at night.

Beautiful soles and overall finishing, too. I'm not surprised that they'll be that expensive as the G&G for RL Purple Label shoes that I saw must have been equivalent to around $1400 and shoes in Australia are typically more expensive than in Japan.

By the way, I don't know what models of C&J are stocked by American Tailor in Melbourne, but have you heard that Herringbone now stocks C&Js. At present, they are only stocked in Sydney but they will hopefully roll them out to other cities in the not-too-distant future. Whilst pricing is higher than if ordering from Pediwear, Bodileys etc, it's actually not too bad, particularly when compared to the absolutely outrageous prices charged by other stores carrying English shoes in Australia ($995 for corrected-grain Churchs!?!?).

Ed Greens at John Cutler are about $1500, and i would say they are on par with G&G
there all gemmed though. Theres a giant flaw in all those shoes. Handwelting ftw

Edit:  if i hadnt started my latest project i would be all over the Cleverly idea if they came down.

Last edited by wrigglez (2010-04-13 18:16:20)

The last is at cliff, all up its now (after I pay for the final bill) about AUD$1100, that’s my shoe budget for this year anyway, the benefit of G&G is the beautiful uppers and finishing you get, shame they match the lovely uppers with a gemmed construction. With cliff the welt is (hand) stitched to the insole and the welt is machine stitched to the sole, that was the original point of Goodyear machines, the welt to the sole, and that was a solid construction which built the good name for Goodyear welting, sadly when corners were cut and gemming was used it defeated the purpose of Goodyear welting.
edit
i made test shoes out of leather, same as the french guy off SF that made his own shoes, i forget his name, shoefan or somthing. they fit better than my RM.W's a little more snug but support way more in the arch and the arch side of the foot.

Last edited by wrigglez (2010-04-14 02:07:51)

you can get bespoke quality uppers for an up charge of about 70pounds, his standard uppers are on par with benchgrade C&J's

oh I will, the wait may kill me but it will be worth it