My most treasured watch: George Glasgow Jr, CEO of G. Cleverley
Our occasional series profiling the prized watches of the world?s collectors takes us to Mayfair and one of the UK?s most prestigious cobblers
By James Buttery
WHO: George Glasgow Jr, CEO of the family-owned Mayfair shoemaker George Cleverley
WATCH: Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A
George Cleverley is one of those intrinsically British operations that earns plaudits by continuing to do what it does best as the decades trundle by. The Mayfair cobbler makes shoes today for the likes of Daniel Day Lewis and Jason Statham in exactly the same way as it did for Winston Churchill and Humphrey Bogart, with each stage of the process carried out hand. A pair of their handmade, bespoke shoes costs anything upwards of £3,600. Today, George Glasgow Jr guides the business forward as chief executive ? his father and chairman, George Sr, spent years working under Cleverley. Father and son both take great pride in the business?s independent status when so many artisan companies are quietly absorbed by conglomerates.
?It?s almost unique that the company has been able to evolve in the manner it has done, espouses Glasgow. ?A lot of British brands, while they might have heritage, have found themselves not quite relevant today.?
The chief executive wasn?t handed the top spot without earning it. He began learning his trade in the workshop, before taking responsibility for the business?s international trunk shows, a biannual world tour that saw him travel the globe and develop it into a...
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