Shoemaker · London · Founded 1849
John Lobb (St James's)
John Lobb of St James's is a family-owned London firm making shoes by hand to each customer's own foot shape, separate from John Lobb Paris.
John Lobb of St James's Street is a family-owned London bespoke bootmaker founded in 1849. It makes hand-welted shoes on lasts carved for the individual customer, holds royal warrants, and is not to be confused with John Lobb Paris, a separate ready-to-wear business owned by Hermès that uses the same name under a historical arrangement.
Two John Lobbs
This is the most persistent confusion in shoemaking and it is worth settling first. John Lobb of St James's Street, London is a family-owned bespoke bootmaker. John Lobb Paris is a separate business, owned by Hermès since the 1970s, which makes ready-to-wear and made-to-order shoes and also offers bespoke. Both trace to the same nineteenth-century founder; they are now unrelated companies.
A shoe described as John Lobb without further qualification is almost always the Paris business, because it is far larger and has shops. The London firm has one address.
The commission
A first bespoke commission begins with measurement and observation of both feet, from which a last is carved in wood for that customer. A trial shoe is made and fitted, the last is adjusted, and the finished pair is then made: clicked, closed, lasted, hand-welted, soled and finished by different specialists. The whole process runs to something like six months or more for a first pair, and the last is kept for subsequent orders. That is what makes a second pair meaningfully faster and a first pair expensive.
The workshop
The St James's Street premises hold the shop and, behind and below it, the workshop and the last room, where customers' lasts are stored: thousands of them, including those of long-dead clients.
Work is divided among specialists as it is in tailoring: last maker, clicker, closer, maker, finisher. A single pair passes through several pairs of hands, which is why the lead time is what it is.
What a bespoke shoe actually buys
Fit, first: a last carved for both of your feet, which differ, and corrected after a trial shoe. For a foot that ready-to-wear cannot accommodate, nothing else solves the problem.
Longevity, second: hand-welted construction with a holdfast cut from the insole has no gemming to fail, so the shoe can be resoled as many times as the upper survives, which for a lightly worn pair can be decades. The economics are still poor against good ready-to-wear; the fit is the argument.
Images
Licensing →
The record
What it costs
Prices across the site →These are not quotations. Prices below are the most recent figures we could attribute to a source, shown in the currency they were published in.
| What | Service | Price | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bespoke oxford shoeFirst-pair bespoke including the carved last. Later pairs on an existing last are lower. An indicative band, not a quotation. | Bespoke | £5,000–8,000 | September 2026 |
Houses often considered alongside it
Grouped because they compete for the same commission or work in a comparable idiom: not a ranking, and not an equivalence.
01
George Cleverley
George Cleverley is a London shoemaker in the Royal Arcade, making custom and off-the-shelf shoes known for a long, slightly squared-off toe.
02
John Lobb (Paris)
John Lobb Paris is a Hermès-owned shoe brand selling high-end factory-made and made-to-order shoes, and is a separate company from the London John Lobb.
03
Yohei Fukuda
English method, Japanese execution, and one of the finest bespoke shoes made anywhere today.
Sources
- House information , John Lobb Bootmaker.
Where a figure is disputed or a house has not published it, the page says so rather than choosing a number.
Picture credits 5
- Store front of John Lobb, 88 Jermyn St, London: Photograph · OlafJanssen · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Shop interior of John Lobb, bespoke shoe and bootmaker, 88 Jermyn Street, London: Photograph · OlafJanssen · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
- An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art
- An illustration of a welted shoe of the kind the house makes. Not a photograph of the house's own work.: Original art · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale · Il Sartoriale original art