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Edward Jones, owner and sole maker of Edward's Shoes, always had an interest in fashion, but the Owensboro, Kentucky, native never thought to pursue it as a career until two years ago. After working in IT for nearly two decades, he found himself in need of more creative pursuits and asked his wife to teach him how to sew. He began making bow ties and selling them online, but it was shoes he felt a stronger connection to.
'Shoes are the jewelry for men,” says Jones. 'I build my outfits based on my shoes; they can be the foundation for what you wear.”
His passion was so infectious that when he shared his plan with a friend, he scored his first investor: 'He said, ‘Give me ten percent of the business and I'll write you a check,' Jones recalls. 'That's how I got started.” It took him six months to find the equipment he needed: a salvaged 1960s Landis K outsole stitcher and a vintage sewing machine. As a self-taught shoemaker, he knew he had to be resourceful.
'I Googled every shoemaker I could find and I made a list,” he says. 'Every time I would get stuck, I would ask the next person on that list a question; when they answered it, I would cross them off the list and go to the next person. When I got about halfway down the list, I could actually make a shoe.”
In 2014, he entered Garden & Gun magazine's Made in the South Awards on a whimand his business hasn't slowed down since.
'I couldn't believe it when I heard that I made it to the final round. I was just getting started,” he says. 'The shoes I sent them were the fourth or fifth pair I'd ever made.”
A pair of antique cowhide and suede saddle oxfords earned him a runner-up title in the Style & Design categoryand took his demand from roughly two pairs a month to a six-month waiting list. He moved out of the makeshift workshop in his garage in Spring Hill and down the street into an 800-square-foot studio built inside an old high school classroom.
Jones' labor-intensive process to complete each pair of shoes involves more than 200 individual steps executed over the course of 50 hours. It begins with a pattern devised from a shoe last, which is a wood or plastic form resembling a foot. He cuts the pattern from leather, offering a range as varied as antique bison, glazed calf, kangaroo, and stingray. Next, the leather is sewed and then pulled over the last before it's welted and soled. For a bespoke order ($2,000), he takes about six measurements and makes an ink print of each foot in order to get an exact impression. Clients are a part of the entire process, from the initial consultation to approving design sketches and even seeing the handcrafting of their shoes from photos he sends with their order.
Jones also has a ready-to-wear collection that starts at $700 per pair, and he offers the opportunity to build upon those designs, which bumps the price to about $1,200. Whether you want a different shade of suede or leather or to add cap toes, wingtips, or broguing, the possibilities are endless.
'I had a client a couple months ago who was planning a trip to Las Vegas and wanted a pair of lucky shoes to wear,” says Jones. 'So I put a pennyheads up, of coursein each shoe. I have tremendous visions for my company, but what's important to me is not losing that personal touch,” he adds.
His next goal is to establish a retailer in Nashville where he can do fittings locally. But, like many successful artisans, his greatest struggle is deciding how fast to grow while maintaining that customer relationship and care he puts into every shoe.