It was on a recent trip to the south of France last month that my partner and I passed a countryside boot fair. As the sellers were packing up, we stopped and glanced half-heartedly at the event and saw an elderly gentleman standing over a small collection of shoes. No one seemed particularly interested in his wares.
On inspection we saw the shoes were fabulous! They were all 80s deadstock (unused vintage) and included sandals, pumps and those wonderful stacked heel loafers.
Neither speaking the other's language, we still managed to 'converse' and discovered that in the 1980's the seller used to own an upmarket boutique which he later closed. Remaining from this time was a garage full of old boxed shoes......... he asked if we were free to meet him at the garage the following week?
Well..........we sure did and in that large garage (which incidentally housed an impressive wine cellar), we uncovered amidst the dust, many more all-leather Italian made shoes boxed and un-boxed in a variety of colours and sizes.
This former boutique owner (.....now estate agent) said he preferred the property market to fashion retail. Despite this we can say he certainly remains a man of taste with the eye for quality and craftsmanship.
Upon much horse-trading, we were thankfully able to bring back the very best shoes making this exciting find available to our discerning customers.
All the shoes from our haul will be uploaded here and in our ebay store over the next couple of weeks.