Footwear
ROBINSON’S SHOES On a chance visit during a trip to Belfast, Nat Bocking found himself in the hands of a man who truly seemed to know what shoes he needed
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“I may be crazy, but this shop is not about the cash register. I could just ring up a sale to you now, but I want to give our customers the fit you can only get with custom-made shoes elsewhere, by sizing each one correctly. Then the customer will keep coming back”
he puddle I was standing in was soaking into my socks, signalling that the rubber soles of my favourite boots (Clarks Chelsea Beeswax, if you care to know) had reached the end of their life. It transpires that the raised cleats on the edge of the sole are hollow, so if the apparently thickest part of the sole wears out it creates a large and unrepairable hole. I presume that the few micro-grammes of rubber this saves in the mould over millions of pairs adds up and so improves Clarks’ bottom line. Two years’ wear from one pair of boots was a pretty good return on my investment, since I bought them in the Muswell Hill branch of Clarks – which had
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