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How COVID-19 Led to a Really Expensive Sneaker
There are two distinct stitches on one of the sneakers we’ll be talking about today because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I know that’s a weird intro. Just bear with me, though, for a second.
In fact, the entire sneaker was designed to prevent a company from going out of business during the pandemic. Why were these stitches, and why was this sneaker designed for the COVID-19 pandemic? I asked Chris Woodford, the great-great-grandson of Ernest Woodford of E. Woodford and Sons, a 116-year-old family-owned fifth-generation shoemaking business based in Northampton, England.
Let’s talk about Crown Northampton sneakers and boots.
COVID-19 happened, and at the time, Chris’s factory was making sneakers. The way he made the sneakers required a lot of people to be in a room together very closely. So, to put it very simply, Chris realizes that if you can’t have people in the factory, you can’t make sneakers, you can’t sell sneakers, and you go out of business.
But Chris, who is a fifth-generation shoemaker, thinks back to a time when he was in the back of his dad’s car driving around his town, picking up pre-sewn uppers. The entire shoe wasn’t put together yet, but the top part was put together.
Those shoes that 8-year-old Chris and his father were picking up were actually hand-sewn moccasins, and the beauty of hand-sewn is that you can sew them at home because you don’t need a big giant sewing machine to put everything together.
So Chris sent half of his employees home so they could hand-sew the uppers of these sneakers, then he drove around and picked up all of the hand-sewn uppers, brought those back to the factory where the other half of his employees were now all spaced apart and they were made into sneakers.
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The Problem with Hand-Sewing (Spoiler: It’s Expensive)
However, there is one big problem – making a sneaker this way is much slower.
What does that do? It brings the total price of the sneaker up. If you’re a savvy businessman, you’re probably thinking, “No problem, Michael, we can mitigate the cost of labor by using cheaper materials.”
Well, guess what? Chris is not a savvy businessman; he’s an artist. Just kidding, Chris. He’s an artist and a savvy businessman. Chris said, “Hey if we’re going to do this really slow process, it’s going to make these sneakers super expensive. Let’s not leave something in the gas tank and cheap out here.”
So the bottom of the sneaker is made out of pure virgin hevea milk, which is baby calf Italian vegetable-tanned leather, and the inside of the sneaker is the same leather used on very fancy French handbags.
So, mush everything together, and you get the Harlestone, a sneaker designed from memory in the back of Chris’s dad’s car.
A Quick History Lesson on Northampton Shoemaking
Chris is referencing what he learned from his dad, who learned from his dad, who learned from his dad, who learned from his dad, who probably learned from some master shoemakers in Northampton.
If you don’t know about Northampton, England, it’s one of the greatest shoe hubs in the entire world in the past 900 years, definitively. The editor of the Northampton Independent in 1922 wrote: “Without the unfailing barrage of boots Northampton put over for all of the Allied armies, we could have never shattered the German lines.”
The UK put out 70 million boots in World War I, Northampton put out 50 million of those 70 million.
What Actually Makes Crown Northampton Special
What’s up, everybody? It’s Michael. Welcome back to episode two of the world’s most fantastic series, which is dedicated to the world’s greatest manufacturers and figuring out what they do exactly, how they do it, and why they do it.
The original plan for this article was we were just going to focus on what made the Harlestone sneaker special but after talking with Chris, I realized that what made it special was Chris Woodford, a fifth-generation shoemaker.
For example, I asked Chris a little bit about the leather, and he sent me an 11-page Word document that he had written up on the spot about why he had chosen this exact leather.
The Harlestone is still going to be our main focus for the article, but each sneaker from Crown Northampton kind of contributes to what goes into the Harlestone and tells you more about the brand. They’re also super weird. For example, Chris’s Japanese customers call one of his sneakers marshmallows.
So why not learn about them also? Here’s a little disclaimer: I didn’t get paid by Crown Northampton. Chris never reached out to me, but I reached out to them. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
The Regent, AKA The Marshmallow Sneaker: Where It All Started
Okay, let’s start off with the weirdest marshmallow first. It is the Regent and something that shows me Chris is an A1 Footwear nerd.
The Jazz collection from Crown Northampton is integral to the entire brand. That is the first thing that Chris made for Crown Northampton, which is very popular in the Japanese Market; that is why it’s called marshmallows cuz they are soft like marshmallows.
They became really popular because they’re so comfortable, they’re so stylish, they have this really nice dainty look, but if you kind of hide all of that in a German Army trainer, they look normal.
This is where Crown Northampton was born, and you can see all the DNA in Chris’s first designs throughout the brand. So these are the things that we need to actually focus on – the four things that define Crown Northampton: premium materials, obscene softness and comfort, whole-cut construction, and simplicity.
So, each one of those points is going to have its own sneaker that highlights a specific feature of Crown Northampton, but think of the Jazz collection as the center of all of that. They use beautiful whole-cut construction, and they are made of insane materials, but this is really a highlight of comfort.
The Jazz collection is insanely comfortable. It feels like you’re walking around with slippers, practically wearing nothing, but the fact that we still have cork on this foot and we’re using insanely premium materials makes it that much more interesting and kind of has the Crown Northampton spirit.
The Harlestone: Let’s Dive In
That brings us to the next shoe: the Harlestone. Coming in at about half the cost of the $800 Shell Cordovan Harlestones, this sneaker is really just an exploration into what insane materials Crown North Anton is using to hit these prices. First, we have the uppers, aka the white top part of the sneaker, which is vegetable-tanned baby calf leather from Italy.
There are two pluses to vegetable tanning: one, it patinas and ages beautifully, and two, it holds structure better, so it gives the Harlestone more of a definite shape; you can mold it and have it keep its shape for longer.
This may be my favorite thing about the shoes. Obviously, the sneakers are built fantastically, but the soles are protected by three organizations in France. They’re a living tangible – well, let me just read from their site – “Lactae Hevea soles are safeguarded by UNESCO, the United Nations educational scientific and cultural organizations, as an intangible cultural heritage, and it’s awarded the label of living Heritage company by the French State.”
These are a big deal. They are made by the rubber tree. Someone who is harvesting the sap from a rubber tree is basically slicing the tree in spirals.
The tears of the tree are very valuable. They drip into a little cup. You put all those cups in a big thing, and then you make it into natural latex, and there are no machines involved in making these soles, which is obviously a weird thing to say about anything in 2024, but that’s what’s so crazy about them.
They are hand-poured into molds and then dried in those molds. It is so delicate before it is fully cured or dried that it has to cure or dry in water; otherwise, if it’s placed on a flat surface, the sole will deform. These soles will get 99% of people through most things, but if you are a smoke jumper or something like that, you know, don’t go with a $450 sneaker using Lactae Hevea soles.
Inside the Sneaker: Why the Lining Matters
Okay, onto the lining leather. These sneakers are so grand and use such lavish materials that the inside of these sneakers, the guts that most brands use the cheapest form of leather for because you’ll never see it, have a story unto themselves. They specifically go to J & FJ Bakers, a company in England that gets this specific leather.
Northampton became the monster shoe-making capital of the world, especially during World War I and everything like that, because of where they are located. They are located near a lot of cattle so they could use that leather for shoes, they are located near a lot of water so they could tan that leather, they’re also not too far from cities so people coming through could buy stuff.
Most importantly, they are near a lot of oak trees. J & FJ Bakers and Company are the UK’s only remaining traditional oak bark tannery, and they didn’t change a single thing, which is insane. You can add some chemicals and some additives to speed up the tanning process. You could agitate the leather in the tannins so that way it goes a little bit faster, but they don’t even do that.
Instead of me telling you why Chris uses it, we can just use Chris’s words. He says, “The quality has to match the outside uppers. You don’t want the inside of your shoes to break down and the outside to be pristine.” True.
Second, this is the important one, “A nod to Heritage and to keeping this type of craft alive. Businesses like this survive only because of the people who truly care about quality and heritage. It has to be that combination.” That’s basically why I do what I do because I think that’s what makes things really special.
Shell Cordovan: The King of Leathers
And then, finally, we get to the Harlestone made from Shell Cordovan, what many believe to be the greatest leather on planet Earth. It’s very hard to find a video about Shell Cordovan where the presenter is not wearing a beautiful suit.
Shell Cordovan is buried inside of a horse’s butt, to be frank, and although horses do have large butts, they’re not huge, so you only get two shells per horse, and those make about one piece of footwear each.
The process of making Shell Cordovan is actually very intense. I recommend you check out the video that Nick at Stridewise did on Shell Cordovan. Either way, it’s fantastic leather, but what makes it fantastic?
First things first that we can’t ignore are that this is obviously very expensive leather, so it does have a natural allure to it. Because of that, right from the start, people want to see the most expensive leather, so that’s one thing. What’s cool about Cordovan, though, is that it has a very tight grain structure, so it doesn’t wrinkle or crease; it rolls. That’s what’s very special about it.
Shell Cordovan also patinas really, really beautifully over time. It darkens to be very, very rich, it’s incredibly durable, and it has this beautiful shine that’s very easy to maintain. You really just need to brush this, and it will come back looking new.
When you combine all of that great stuff (durability, easy to shine up, easy to buff scratches out of, patinas beautifully), you get a leather that looks fantastic on day one but also 100 years later looks fantastic and still looks like a functional piece of footwear or bag or wallet.
It doesn’t look like it’s broken down and kind of breaking apart. That’s why Shell Cordovan has a really strong cult following mixed in with the allure of it being incredibly expensive and having this amazing process behind it and all of that. That is Shell Cordovan.
The Pizza Dough Sneaker: A 25-Year-Old Innovation
Now we have the weirdest sneaker that we’re talking about today, both because the upper feels like pizza dough and also because I’ve never seen a sneaker constructed like this before.
Let’s talk about the Abbey.
Dearborn leather is a very fascinating leather from Horween because it’s supposed to emulate the feel of deer leather but not be as weak. I guess weak is not the best way of saying it, but just to be stronger and to hold up to heavier use.
The interesting thing about these sneakers is that Dearborn leather is, per Crown Northampton, not something that is meant to be put on footwear, but it also has to be unlined. In order for you to get the benefits of Dearborn leather, you need different thicknesses of leather for different purposes.
The lining of leather shoes and stuff like that is very thin; other areas are very thick. But 25 years ago, when I was 3 years old, Chris was off to buy a leather splitting machine, and the guy that showed him how to work the machine in a way that the leather was still one piece of leather instead of the usual two. That’s called semi-splitting. You can’t really peel it open or anything like that to get that effect. It needs to be split.
Chris looked at that and said, “Wow, I’m going to use that in 25 years,” and he did on the Abbey. The sneaker needs stiffeners in general; otherwise, it’s just going to be a very floppy piece of leather.
You’d especially notice it over the toe. It would kind of just flop over your toes like pizza dough instead of maintaining any shape. So, usually, with sneakers, there is the upper (the outside), there’s a lining, and n between the two, there is a stiffener that keeps the shape. But what’s interesting is if you semi-split this leather, you can slip a little something something in between the layers and close it up, and you don’t need to add a lining, and that is what the Abby is doing.
And it’s things like that that you only get if you’ve been working in the trade for a long time. If, by chance, you saw a leather splitter 25 years ago that did something that surprised you and stuck with you, you design the Abbey, and that’s what I really like about Crown Northampton.
The Rambler: Whole Cut Construction and Heritage
We need to touch on a pillar of E Woodford and Sons, not just Crown Northampton, and that is whole-cut construction.
This is the Everdon Rambler.
It is basically the same thing as the Everdon sneaker, except now we have vulcanized rubber Vibram soles, d-rings, and speed hooks at the top. It’s the boot version of a sneaker. This boot uses the same construction methods that Chris’s great-great-grandfather used in Victorian-era England shoe-making competitions.
I think this is on the Crown Northampton site, but Chris says, “Whole-cut bespoke welted shoes were being made to show off my great-grandfather’s skills 100 years ago.”
I think it’s best to go over whole cut construction by looking at E Woodford and Sons, the very fancy, dancy $5,000 shoe division of Crown Northampton. If you look at the shoes they make, you can understand why whole-cut construction is the top-tier level of elegance that is supposed to show off the skill of a shoemaker.
To make a whole cut piece of footwear is hard to cut, it’s hard to pattern, and it’s hard to make into a shoe in general, so it’s a flex. You’re taking one perfect cut of leather with no flaws or anything like that, and you’re wrapping it completely around the last, and you have a single seam in the back.
My favorite thing, I think, about this boot is that it’s Crown Northampton, specifically. They didn’t just copy Italian hiking boots, even though they’re similar. And they didn’t make a random moc-toe boot. They made what they wanted in their own unique way.
Crown Northampton Sneaker Comparison
| Product | Key Materials | Features | Construction Process | Unique Benefits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harlestone Sneaker | Vegetable-tanned baby calf leather | Elegant patina, structural integrity | Hand-sewn uppers, artisanal sole crafting | Heritage-inspired design, durable over time |
| Jazz Collection (Regent) | Soft premium materials | Dainty aesthetics, marshmallow-like comfort | Whole cut construction | Supreme comfort, popular in Japanese market |
| Aby Sneaker | Semi-split Deerborn leather | Feels like pizza dough, lightweight | 25-year innovation with semi-split leather | Unlined for flexibility, stiffener-free design |
| Rambler Boot | Buffalo leather | Classic hiking boot-inspired design | Whole cut construction with D-rings | Durability and timeless style |
| Marshmallow Sneaker | Soft premium materials | Extra soft, slipper-like comfort | Whole cut design | Insanely soft feel, signature simplicity |
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Final Thoughts and Future Projects
Oh, but you know what? I have been meaning to tell you I’m working on a collaboration with one of the greatest American boot companies of all time, as well as a hiking sneaker collaboration with a brand based in Sheffield, England.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that I like that Crown Northampton does its own thing. If I asked a fifth-generation shoemaker to make a boot to walk his dog. In that case, I imagine he would use a tan Buffalo leather in a whole-cut construction with hand-sewn details on the back and to hold the tongue up because that is his history, that is his Heritage, and that’s all baked into the Rambler. It also just fits in with the brand as a whole, and you could see the history in every piece based on what piece it is.
And frankly, I just thought the way Crown Northampton runs their business and how they go about designing things is all very cool. It seems like a very modern way to appreciate old-world things, keep them around, and make sure people still want to buy them and that they’re accessible. It’s very cool also. That is about it for Crown Northampton sneakers and boots.
Thank you so much for reading! I will see you all very soon.
This article was adapted from Michael Kristy’s video on The Iron Snail, with edits from FashionBeans, and was reviewed by Michael to ensure the integrity of his original content. Watch the full video here.
The Iron Snail is a men’s fashion vlog (and now article series!) starring a young man named Michael and featuring a snail no bigger than a quarter. The two are set on taking over the world of fashion by creating a clothing line to end all clothing lines. Until then, we’re here to tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about the best clothing out there, from the highest quality raw denim jeans to the warmest jackets to the sturdiest boots…the Iron Snail has got you covered.