Step Change

Words by Johnny Davis

Once dubbed one of the best-dressed men in Britain, Esquire’s Luxury Director, Johnny Davis, spent years chasing the next big trainer trend – until he realised that nothing says ‘assured style’ like a proper pair of shoes

Johnny Davis Step Change | Crockett & Jones

I was, like most children of the 1970s, introduced to shoes as something joyless. They were fitted in Clarks, under the watchful eye of a man with a measuring gauge, and associated almost entirely with school: stiff leather, regulation colours and the understanding that someone else had decided what went on your feet. Shoes, in other words, were authority. Which, naturally enough, meant that I wanted nothing to do with them.

That began to change in Sixth Form, at a school in Bristol, thanks to my friend Bayode – always the cool one, with an instinctive interest in clothes long before the rest of us (he now runs a tailoring business). One half-term he went home to London and returned wearing a pair of outsize white trainers. Until then, trainers were for gym, under the supervision of Mr Percival. You certainly did not wear them as part of an ‘outfit’. Bayode, a devoted Soul II Soul fan, couldn’t wear them to school, but in downtime he did. It was, to me, completely mind-blowing. From that point on, I fell for trainers.

Like many young people outside London, my route to a brighter world was through magazines, specifically The Face. I was transfixed by a shoot with Jamiroquai, upside down in a handstand, wearing a pair of flat blue trainers with a white stripe. I had no idea what they were. This was pre-internet. So I summoned up the courage to phone the magazine, where the receptionist was exactly as bolshy as I had anticipated, audibly sighing down the line before eventually telling me they were Puma States, available from Duffer of St George in Covent Garden. I saved up, got the bus to London, bought a pair, and promptly ruined them at a foam party in Ibiza.

By the mid-90s I had managed to get a job at The Face, which led, among other things, to a trip to Japan, where I found trainers in colourways I had never seen before, which would take another decade to arrive in the UK. I came back with a bright pink pair and rather enjoyed being stopped in the street by people asking where I’d got them.

Get the look

Boston

Dark Brown Suede

Boston

Black Calf

In 2001, GQ named me the 23rd best-dressed man in Britain – somehow ahead of David Bowie (46th place), Prince Charles (45th) and Terence Stamp (37th), though still behind Elton John, Bryan Ferry and Jude Law. I’m not making this up. The reason printed was simple enough: “He wears bright pink Converse.” It was ridiculous, of course – but it made a point. At that time, trainers felt like the interesting choice. They were a way of saying something.

Then came The Strokes era, when everyone was wearing battered white plimsolls that looked as though they had already lived a life. I bought a pristine canvas pair, stepped straight into wet cement outside the shop and ruined them. My wife still weeps with laughter whenever I tell the story.

But then it all changed.

When I joined Esquire, I realised that I needed to change my game. Trainers had been my way into clothes. They were fun, expressive, easy to obsess over. But they were also becoming universal. What had once felt like a choice began to feel a little obvious.

Around the same time, I started going to fashion shows more regularly. What struck me, season after season, was not the men on the front row in the most obviously ‘fashionable’ outfits, but the ones who had worked something out. A navy crewneck, good trousers, a proper coat and a proper pair of shoes. They did not look conservative. They looked assured. They looked as though they knew exactly who they were.

More to the point, they always looked right.

Get the look

Boston 2

Dark Brown Rough-Out Suede

Boston 2

Green Rough-Out Suede

That was the word I kept coming back to. Right. Not dressed up, not dressed down, not trying too hard. Just correct. There is a particular feeling that comes with putting on a proper pair of shoes – the weight, the structure, the small ritual of lacing them up, or simply the firmness of a well-made loafer on the foot. It changes how you stand, how you walk, how you carry yourself. Trainers can be charming, and I still wear them now and then, but they do not ask much of you. Proper shoes do. They sharpen the rest of what you are wearing.

That, for me, is where Crockett & Jones comes in. What I have come to value over time is not novelty, but reliability: shoes that feel handsome rather than flashy, that work with the clothes I actually wear, and that improve with age. At weekends, that might mean a pair of loafers with cords or denim and a shirt with a collar. During the week, it is more likely to be a dark lace-up with tailoring. In either case, the attraction is the same. They do not need to be the loudest thing in the room. They simply lend everything around them a little more shape and authority.

I had spent years chasing the next new thing – the next silhouette, the next colour, the next pair that might say something clever about me. And here, eventually, was something better: a small rotation of shoes that did not really need to change, because they were already doing their job. It is an approach I have stuck with ever since.

I polish them. I look after them. I like that they demand a bit in return. And once you start wearing proper leather shoes at the weekend, you notice how few others do. My mother used to complain when newsreaders stopped wearing ties; now you are fortunate to see any man on a Saturday in something that isn’t, essentially, gym kit. A good pair of shoes will not change your life, but they will make you stand a little taller.

Now when I think back to those pink Converse – and the brief and slightly absurd moment of being named one of the best-dressed men in Britain because of them – I wonder whether I had it the wrong way round.

For years, I wanted people to notice what was on my feet. Now, I think the real trick is simpler than that. Just to get it right.