Our guiding principle is that our crafted products are wherever possible made in England.

The centre of this activity is the Foster & Son workshop, situated right over our retail store in Jermyn Street, and staffed by an enthusiastic dedicated team of shoe and bootmakers who have many years’ experience in leather craftsmanship.

Our Briefcases and luggage are fully English made using top quality English Bridle leather or canvas and high quality brass fittings. Attaches are measured by depth, from the slim-line 2.75" up to 5". We will be happy to make a case your your own specifications. Allow about 20% premium over our retail prices for a unique case, and about 6 -8 weeks for delivery.

Foster & Son Ready to Wear shoes and boots are made in Northampton to the specifications of our bespoke shoemakers, who set the standards for this high quality offering. If you would like different leathers, colours or finishes from what you see, we can often have a shoe made specially for you.

Fosters' wallets, card cases, jotters and key fobs are all made here in England by local craftsmen and women.

We welcome designs for specially commissioned pieces to meet your own requirements.

The Fosters range of accessories is designed to complement and sustain the quality and longevity of the products you buy from us.

A well designed shoe tree, or even a humble shoe brush, will give years of pleasurable use if made and designed properly, and good old fashioned beeswax polish is still the best to be had.           

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Welcome to Foster & Son.
If you would like to recieve information about Foster & Son, news about special offers or travel, please register your details here. We anticipate offering online purchasing quite shortly and hope this will be well received. For bespoke goods, or those that need fitting we shall continue to encourage customers to contact us personally rather than buying over the web.

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With over 170 years' experience, we hope to be a realiable source of answers to those questions you may have. Take a look at our most frequently asked questions. If you cannot find an answer, please email or give us a call!

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How are your ready-to-wear shoes different from the bespoke ones?

Our bespoke shoes are made by hand to your personal specifications and can be in any material or style you want, provided that it is practical to make a high quality shoe that way.

Our ready-to-wear (sometimes called “Bench-Made”) shoes also benefit from the design skills of our bespoke workshop but are machine-made, mostly using a famous manufacturing process called “Goodyear welting”. Goodyear welting was invented in 1871 by an American, Charles Goodyear, Jr. but soon became adopted as a specifically English way of joining the upper of the shoe to the sole.

Our collection of Ready-to-wear shoes represents a range that we believe our customers will appreciate. They are available immediately from our stock (or can be obtained for you within a few weeks) whereas the

bespoke shoes take about 6 months to make.

If your ready-to-wear shoes are machine made, what is special about them?

Our core collection of ready to wear shoes are mostly Goodyear-welted English made shoes that are designed by us and conform to the high standards we set as bespoke makers.

The use of high quality materials such as oak bark vegetable tanned leather that has superior flexibility and wearing qualities, “in channel” stitching, high quality natural tinted full calf linings, a wooden shank, “gentleman’s corner” and other details makes a huge difference to the quality of a shoe, which can only be appreciated over time. We prefer plain bottoms for our shoes with an interlocked rubber top piece on the heel, but if you prefer to announce your arrival with steel, this can be arranged.

Our collection is focussed on elegant designs that have stood the test of time, such as our “Aston” that is based on one of our heritage bespoke shoes, or that are suited for a particular situation, such as a smart black slip-on for weddings, black patent leather dress shoes for formal evening wear, a classic loafer, the restrained formal city shoe, or more assertive winged brogue.

We hope that our selection will appeal to those of you who appreciate stylish and elegant shoes of lasting quality.