Takeaway

I must have listened to the interviews that we do for Breaking Bread a dozen times at least. I've had some people that complain that the podcasts are too long, the thing is there are good chunks of information within the conversations that we have. For the podcast that we did with Randy Laybourne he mentioned the movie Fitzcarraldo. I don't know anything about the movie but I thought I would look up some information on it since I found what Randy said about the documentary of making of Fitzcarraldo was more interesting then the movie itself. In my research I found the interview above which I found very inspiring.


Vince

PADMORE AND BARNES

As a Wu Tang head and a hip hop head I owned a couple pair of Clark's Wallabees.  These were the shoes to have in the 90's, a little dressy but rugged looking and at one time they were used in the military.  What was not to love? It had everything a hip hop head could want in a shoe.

An Esquire magazine described the history of the Wallabee well although it was in the form of a comic. During World War II, a soldier named Nathan Clark served in the British 14th Army in Burma and sees officers wearing soft, crepe soled, suede boots that were made in Cairo during the North African campaign.  In 1950, Nathan manages to talk to his family about creating a similar Clark Desert Boot and the shoe is a big hit during the Chicago shoe fair.  Shortly after, the shoe becomes a staple in jazz fans, mods, and ivy league students wardrobe.

Back to me wallabees.  Here is my issue, the crepe sole which sat a little too tall often caused me to roll my ankle, and eventually the glue fell apart and the sole split into two, resembling a duck bill.    I took them to my local shoe maker who wanted 70 bucks to repair my Clark's Wallabees.  That sucked and wasn't worth it at all considering a new pair was only about 50 bucks more.

Those were my newer Wallabees which were made in a factory in China.  My vintage pair were hand made by a Irish company called Padmore and Barnes and  they never had a problem.  Let me school  you a bit for those who has never heard of the name.

Padmore and Barnes was a company in Ireland which was under the ownership of Clarks in the late 60s and they were the first manufacturer of the Grasshopper shoe which eventually took on the name the Wallabee.  As the popularity of this shoe grew, Clarks recognized like most companies that moving production to China was the way to go.  Padmore and Barnes negotiated a buy out from Clarks and they continued to make the Wallabee from 1987 to 1997 but only for all markets outside of North America.  The North American Wallabee was now made in China.  In 2003, the Padmore and Barnes factory stopped manufacturing shoes, all the hip hop heads and skate company wanting collaborations were not enough to keep them making shoes.

Long story short, if you want Wallabees and you are a real sneaker head or if you care about quality then the Padmore and Barnes Wallabees are the ones that you want.  It is pretty easy to figure out that hand made in Ireland is a lot better processing line made in China or Vietnam.   For those of you on the hunt, occasionally a vintage pair turns up on E Bay for purchase, and Padmore and Barnes has a retail operation in Kilkenny, Ireland but looking at the site it seems like they no longer offer anything that I would buy.

Well my black vintage joints look a little worse for wear and now have to be retired, so here my last snap of these guys before they head off to the vintage store.  On the fortunate side of things and what inspired me to write this post is that I just found a pair of Padmore and Barnes Wallabees at Value Village for my girlfriend.