While sneakers have been naming their shoes after celebrities for quite some time, it now seems that dress shoes have caught onto this branding trick. But, instead of being endorsed by a living athlete, their shoes are often named after some corpse who probably wouldn’t have been caught dead in them. Driven by my typical mixture of curiosity and malice, I’ve decided to compare and contrast a couple of the shoes with the person they’re named after. The Orwell and the Capone, two men who have as much in common with each other as these shoes do with them.
The Orwell
Made by Mr. Hare, this is quite a nice shoe. But I have a hard time reconciling its sleek stingray design with the often frumpy and professorial appearance of George Orwell. For all his virtues, Orwell was an unfortunately practical and careless dresser. His own shoes were boots and they were much too large for him.
Not to say that he completely ignored footwear. His most famous quote (“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”) is all about boots. He also said: “And it is a great thing to die in your own bed, though it is better still to die in your boots . . .“ So while he did discuss footwear, it was always boots and usually associated with something like face-stamping or dying.
The Orwell doesn’t like a very good shoe for face stamping though it might be a decent shoe to die in. The most important thing, however, is this: The Orwell shoe is not a boot. It has nothing to do with Orwell. And I doubt the man would want it named after him.
Executors / Capone
Unlike George Orwell, Al Capone would have absolutely no problem with our era of branding nor would he mind having a pair of fancy shoes named after him. But you’d have to ask him permission and you’d have to pay him. A lot. As it is, I doubt that any of these dead people are seeing a cent for the use of their name. But I’m not sure. After all, Fred Astaire’s estate got paid when he danced in a vacuum commercial.
Al Capone would have a problem with not getting paid.
Like George Orwell, the shoes that are named for Al Capone are nice but bear little resemblance to anything he would wear. Al Capone was buried in a pair of black and white spats, which were popular with the gangsters of his day, and, should he have lived in this era, he probably would have favoured some sort of fancy, diamond studded sneaker.
These guys were more about bling than good taste. They just had the good fortune to be working at the height of American menswear. Capone was known to be dressed in “a sumptuous blue suit, accented by a white silk hankie, pearl gray spats and diamond studded platinum watch chain.” I somehow think a pair of Fluevogs just wouldn’t cut it.
These days, neither would spats.
2 pings
Ryan Oakley
September 2, 2009 at 3:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Orwell and Capone: Shoes Named After People http://bit.ly/43ZGQU
Jerem_Morrow
September 2, 2009 at 5:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
RT @thegrumpyowl: Orwell and Capone: Shoes Named After People http://bit.ly/43ZGQU