For those who don’t know, Crown Northampton is a small volume, handmade shoe company in England… in Northampton funnily enough. I was supposed to go visit them in January but sadly my plans fell through.
In my previous review blog, BespokeUnit, I had a pretty solid working relationship with Crown Northampton. I reviewed their Woodford Desert Boots, the amazing Chromexel Ramblers, which are my favorite shoes ever. https://bespokeunit.com/articles/shoes/crown-northampton-everdon-boots/
They were amazing to work with, i pitched them this idea of half a review, half travelog thing where i wear these across a small onsen town in Japan and thats to date my favorite thing I have ever written. https://bespokeunit.com/articles/shoes/crown-northampton-artizan-slippers/
Now that I am independently reviewing stuff, I wanted to return to Crown but this time as a customer. I bought these Turner Apron style jazz shoes in October in a rare leather and they arrived in February.
Price: $245 + $68 tariff charge 🙄
Note: as of November, Crown Northampton adjusted their prices to include the stupid ass tariffs.
https://crownnorthampton.com/en-us/collections/jazz/products/turner-apron-shoe-black-calf-leather-vibram-sole
It might seem long to wait nearly 4 months for a pair of shoes, but Crown Northampton has almost zero inventory. For them it’s all about one at a time, handmade, and supreme quality.
The jazz collection is all about light weight, super comfortable, soft constructed shoes. They have a vibram sole, a cork footbed, and these are made of a rare Sotoko leather which is tanned by Trusting and Burnett. Not a standard option, but when you email customer service they can accommodate anything because they’re made to order.
On the foot, these shoes are like memory foam mattresses. The quality of the interior leather plus the cork foot bed allow your foot to create a perfect indent.
I really appreciate the giant pieces of leather used here, three if you don’t count the decorative seam hider here. I like how the apron is one large piece of Sotoko which goes all the way up to the laces, essentially creating a tongue gusset. Masterful.
While these shoes are nearly perfect, you can still find some handmade charm in these. Does this bug me? Absolutely not, these are amazing quality and can be resoled and reloved with a quick trip back to the UK.
This is a type of goat leather that features these beautiful grain patterns that are really unique. When I first got them, they had this crazy shine which I thought looked a little plasticy. The more I wore them the shine started to dull and the leather started to patina and I love how these look now. *editing note: Sorry I don’t have any prewear pictures, my storage card corrupted*
The biggest problem I have with these shoes is totally subjective, I think they’re ugly when you look at them from the wearers perspective. They look amazing from everyone else’s view. I’ve gotten tons of compliments on them. I like to imagine they’re like a pair of Clark Wallabies, delightfully ugly. Like an old jeep, or a Land Rover defender.
I ended up wearing these shoes a lot with my pilot uniform when I had overnights in Hawai’i or Mexico. I did accidentally order these a half a size too big, but this ended up benefitting me. Firstly it left plenty of room for compression socks and with the help of a third party leather insole, I was power walking through terminal as usual.
Sadly, I don’t think I will keep wearing these at work. On long flights I started getting really weird soreness and cramps on the arch and the top of my foot. I was puzzled but the problem came from my plane. The Boeing 737 has a weird and not very ergonomic flight deck, at my feet there’s a shelf that tilts my feet to around 30 degrees.
Without a shank or any firmer construction in these jazz shoes, my foot was bending in a way that made me really sore over a five or six hour flight, this problem is made even worse when I place my foot on the other areas of the footwell. Like the shelf below the flight computer or this small cupholder.
Don’t feel too bad for me, I have another pair of Crown shoes coming, a grail pair, that’s gonna me the shoes I retire in, which will be in 32 years.
Which will be a crazy statement if you didn’t know how crazy Crown Northampton is about quality and recraftability.
While these Turner Aprons may not be the perfect shoes for the cockpit, they are defiantly the perfect shoe for business class. Comfortable, easy ingress and egress, effortlessly cool, and formal enough to wear with a suit… as long as it’s not capital F Formal. From my first review of Jazz shoes in 2025, the price has increased due to some idiotic presidential policy making. I still think these are a good deal. Especially when you consider the price of resoling these are less than the price of a okay quality dress shoe. Me personally, I’d rather buy for life.
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