Crockett & Jones - The Clifford Full brogue (patina)

I have been keeping an eye on the Crockett and Jones, Clifford full brogue oxford in tan colour for years. Living in the Nordic where sunshine is available for about three to four months, I did not know what to do do with a tan coloured shoe.  In the mean time bought a full brogue on the 337 last from W. S Foster in antique chestnut, a shoe that makes people look twice due to the shine.

Last week I took four pair of shoes to my local cobbler, who sells mainly Crockett & Jones, when viewing my shoes he asked if I brought them in to show off (the shine, gloss). Our conversation ended up with me borrowing a pair of Crockett & Jones, Clifford hand-grade (full brogues) in tan, to take home and play with, meaning making a "patina". 

I realised when working on the colour & patina, that if I were to bespeak a pair of Summer shoes for the Nordic, would rather go for tan colour and then work on that to get the correct colour/patina that will compliment the Summer and SPring of the Nordic. Note that it was the first time I tried this very formidable and demanding art of patina, and during the process I realised how much it craves from one. My respect to all the Masters of patina around the world.

Below my (left) W.S. Forster, full brogue oxford (Thornham), antique chestnut, built on the 337 Last. On the right also a W. S. Foster punched cap toe (Westbury), built on 337 last, antique chestnut. Now for those of you who do not know the Crockett & Jones handgrade models the (The Clifford) is the equivalence of W. S. Forster Ready To Wear (Thornham) and the Crockett & Jones, handgrade Belgrave model equavalence to W. S. Foster, Westbury. In short, the shoes are the same(?) but from different shoe makers.

Below lots of black polish applied, outcome not so great.

 Close up on the cap toe of the W. S. Foster, Thornham, full brogue.

Westbury(below) after undergoing a polish after polish & getting the job done right, can be seen it's lighter than above. The colour is almost correct in my humble opinion.

Mirror polishing, can you see me taking pictures on the below??

Above shoes have went through a number of different stages of shinning, and finally I did get the right shoe colouring, which can be seen here on the W. S. Forster (Westbury). The same has been achieved on the Thornham.

Now comes the Clifford, Hangrade from Crockett & Jones in the original colour tan, and me working it out to get the colour that fits the Nordic, Summer climate and Sun and atmosphere....... the outcome can be seen below in different stages.

After a few polishing, shoe on the left, was kept with original colouring (Tan). Shoe on the right, did get a bit of black, burgundy and something else.

Worked on it some days and I got this:

May look identical, but it's not, worked on both shoes, to bring the medallion, stitching, brogeuing etc out. End of the day decided that shoe on the right needed bit of colour and end result is the below before handing over to Rolf Hansson Skomakari for a Master review.

Well, will be presenting these to Michael, Bjorn (Rolf's sons) on the 05 May 2012, not sure Big Kahuna (Rolf their father) will be there, so I am a bit itchy. So here you have my humble rendition of "Tan Shoes for the Nordic".

Will present the results tomorrow after audtiition.....Keep fingers .....

Thanks to the Gents and shoe lovers at Rolf Hansson Skomakari (Malmoe, Sweden) for borrowing the shoes (Crockett and Jones, Clifford (Handgrade) in tan out to me a Shoe Scoundrel, to mess up with.

All pictures are sourced from me.