The Derby

We should say at the outset that we love these shoes. They're the pair that gets picked up and turned over in the studio, and the naming took longer than it should have — not quite a loafer, not quite a derby, and briefly a candidate for just being called The Shoe.

The line is the loafer's: an unbroken sweep from the throat over the vamp and out to a long, softly pointed toe, with no lacing, no seam, nothing to interrupt it. What it borrows from the derby is the way it holds — an elasticated panel set into the vamp draws the shoe closed around the foot, so you get the fit of something laced with the ease of something you step into. That panel is the only texture on the shoe, matte ribbing against smooth leather, and it's doing the structural work while looking like a detail.

The upper is Italian vegan leather (62–66% plant-origin materials), and the three colourways are three different shoes. Black is the sharpest and most useful — to work, to dinner, and under a black trouser it reads as one continuous line. Tan warms the whole thing and shows the shape more clearly, the point and the vamp curve reading properly against cream or stone. Patent black is the evening version, high-shine and reflective, and a pointed toe does something quite dramatic in gloss.

Underneath, a slim TR outsole keeps the profile close and clean, with a compressed Tunit heel — a hard-wearing rubber-resin compound — at 2.5cm in a classic stacked finish, enough to lift the heel and set the posture without becoming a heeled shoe. Inside, Portuguese vegan suede (100% PU) lines it, over a layered insole with a soft memory-foam top on a recycled PU base (20% recycled PU).

Tailored trousers cropped at the ankle, a slip skirt, a midi with bare legs or sheer tights, straight or wide denim turned up. Classic-looking shoes with a bit of individuality in them, and the kind that make an outfit look finished without looking like you tried.