BBC Radio Interview - More than a decade of Thomas Bird

We recently joined BBC Radio to talk about where Thomas Bird began, our roots in Northampton, why our shoes are made in Italy and how the business has developed over more than a decade.

What followed was a conversation about shoes, colour, craftsmanship, family influence, America, the enduring Chelsea boot and what it means to remain a small independent business.

Listen to the full BBC interview

More Than a Decade in the Making

Bernie began by looking back at the milestone that brought us into the studio.

BERNIE:
So many of the brilliant shoe companies in Northamptonshire have heritage going back decades. There’s a stylish new kid on the block that goes back a decade.

Thomas Bird was founded by Adam Bugla and Taro Gibbs. Morning, Taro. How nice to meet you.

TARO:
Thanks very much for having me, Bernie. It’s a pleasure to be here.

BERNIE:
One year is a milestone. Five years is a milestone. Ten years feels to me like a proper achievement. Congratulations.

TARO:
Thank you very much. It’s been quite a journey to get to this point. We’re still a relatively small team, with six members of staff employed locally at Riverside. We’re very proud to be a Northampton-based designer footwear brand.

How Thomas Bird Began

The conversation then went back to the beginning and how Taro and fellow co-founder Adam Bugla first came to work together.

BERNIE:
Think back to the start. I’m guessing it goes more than ten years back. How did you know Adam? Did you work for other people together?

TARO:
 Adam is a very talented web developer, and he built my website all those years ago for a different shoe company.

Ten years ago, we spotted an opportunity, a gap in the market, to bring out a collection of English-designed shoes made specifically in Italy, with hand-finished patina and a beautiful silhouette.

We built a website together, which has worked very well. As you say, around 70% of our customers at the moment are based in the United States.

From Northampton to America

That 70% figure prompted an obvious question.

BERNIE:
How come? What have you done? Did you have your eyes set on the United States from the beginning?

TARO:
Not really. It wasn’t by choice.

I think Americans appreciate handmade, beautiful, classical English styling: an Oxford brogue, a lovely slip-on Chelsea boot or a penny loafer. They love those styles.

Taro also pointed to one of the things that has become particularly recognisable across our collection: the use of colour and hand-finished leather.

TARO:
The unique thing about Thomas Bird is that we use crust leather, which is different from the majority of shoe manufacturers.

Crust is like a blank canvas. Our artisans in Italy build the layers using special dyes, brushes and sponges. That gives the shoe a level of ‘pop’ that I think Americans really like.

Finding the Right Makers in Italy

The conversation moved naturally from the finished shoes to the people making them.

BERNIE:
How did you find those artisans? Once you had the idea, was it a matter of taking trips to Italy and doing reconnaissance?

TARO:
It was. Fortunately, my father has been in the shoe trade all his life, with well over 50 years of experience, and he speaks fluent Italian.

With his guidance, it was a case of making several trips, going to international shoe exhibitions and finding the right manufacturer.

BERNIE:
Were you always going to do this because of your dad? Was it always fashion, style and menswear?

TARO:
I think so. I’ve been immersed in that sector my entire life, so it was probably only a matter of time before I followed in his footsteps.

He has taken a back seat in the business now, and Adam and I run it. We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved.

Discover how our shoes are made

English Restraint, Italian Flair

One of our favourite exchanges came when Bernie turned the conversation towards style and what separates Thomas Bird from some of Northampton’s longer-established names.

BERNIE:
At the heart of it is this idea of style. Thomas Bird is built on your idea of style.

There are a few shoe companies here who may be listening, so be careful, Taro. I have a lot of Northampton shoes myself. Jeffrey-West has enormous flair. George Cox has a rebellious streak. I put on my Crockett & Jones and feel like a million dollars.

The difference is that you wanted Italian style. Can you look at people with your expert eye and think, ‘You’re Italian’?

TARO:
I probably could. Italian shoes are known for it, though they can be a little extreme. They can peacock a little too far.

BERNIE:
Can they? You’ve got to be careful.

TARO:
That’s why we have the English component in our design. We tailor things back a little.

BERNIE:
You rein them in.

TARO:
A little.

The brands you mentioned are absolutely fantastic. I’ve had the pleasure of working with the majority of Northampton shoemakers, and they definitely have a place in the market.

We’re just slightly different.

We don’t rule out making shoes in the UK one day; that would be fantastic for the future.

That combination of English restraint and Italian influence remains a good description of what we try to do.

British Heart. Italian Soul.

Blake Stitch and Goodyear Welt

The conversation also moved into construction.

TARO:
The Italians are known for what they call Blake stitch construction, which is different from the Goodyear welt.

The Goodyear welt is certainly more robust. It can last a lifetime, and those are very reliable shoes.

The Italian Thomas Bird shoes we have are Blake stitched. They’re a little more refined, lighter in weight and a little more comfortable, without needing to be broken in so much.

For us, Blake construction suits the lighter and more refined profile we want from many of our shoes.

Blake Stitch

Lighter → Refined → Flexible → Less breaking-in

Blake Stitch vs Goodyear Welt: Read our full guide

Watch Adam explain Blake vs Goodyear

Colour as a Point of Difference

Taro had brought three pairs into the studio, giving Bernie the chance to see some of the finishes up close.

BERNIE:
They are beautiful. You’ve brought in three pairs of shoes in your bag. You make and sell the bags too, don’t you? You have accessories and belts.

TARO:
We do. You’ve clearly been on the website.

BERNIE:
I love it, Taro. It’s fantastic.

Let’s take the one on your left. The colour: on your website, you see blues, browns, plums, reds and greens, scarlet reds. Colour is a major selling point, is it?

TARO:
It is, absolutely.

We encourage customers around the world to complete feedback surveys, and they always say colour is one of the major decision-makers. It makes the shoes stand out online.

BERNIE:
My dad was born more than 100 years ago. His shoes were either black or tan. That was it in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s for men of a certain age.

TARO:
Absolutely. Things have moved on.

Even beyond the colours we offer, dress is becoming much more casual. You can go into a business environment or to a special occasion in a nice suit or formal trousers and wear white cupsole shoes. I think that’s a really big disruptor in the market.

The Benson Wholecut

One of the three pairs attracted particular attention.

The Benson Wholecut in Oxblood.

BERNIE:
The Benson is beautiful: an Oxford in oxblood. It looks simple, an unadorned shoe, but my goodness, it looks stylish.

TARO:
Thank you. The Benson is a wholecut, which means it’s made from a single piece of leather.

There are no seams as such. It’s an unusual cut because it consumes so much leather; you can’t cut out pieces around it and build the shoe.

The result is a lovely silhouette. There’s no distraction to the eye, so the colours can really come through.

BERNIE:
Are you the designer, Taro? Is it your eye?

TARO:
Yes. I suppose I’m the final decision-maker. It’s something I’ve learned, and I’ve definitely been influenced by British manufacturers over the years.

Reinventing a Classic

Bernie then raised something that anyone interested in classical footwear has probably wondered at some point.

How many ways are there to reinvent something as familiar as a shoe?

BERNIE:
You look at a shoe and think: how much scope is there to be creative on something a foot long? It always amazes me that you reinvent the wheel time and again.

TARO:
Have you been to the shoe museum recently?

BERNIE:
I have. That’s a fantastic afternoon. I’d highly recommend it to anybody around here.

TARO:
You’d be surprised: almost all classical shoes have been done before.

You could probably go through 20 different styles. The subtleties are in the colours and finishes, and perhaps a small change here or there, a different cap, stitch or apron.

But it has all been done before. We’ve been very innovative as a county over the years.

Why the Chelsea Boot Endures

Another of the pairs in the studio was a tobacco suede Chelsea boot.

BERNIE:
I’ve seen this style of boot before. What’s this one?

TARO:
That’s our Chelsea boot. It has twin elastic and a pull tab at the back, and it harks back to the Beatles and their sleek, simple, slip-on Chelsea boots.

BERNIE:
How come they haven’t gone out of fashion? I suppose they come and go?

TARO:
There’s a practical element.

You don’t have laces, the elastic gives good support around the ankle, and some people like that more hugging feel around the foot.

It’s practical but also really smart. When you wear them with trousers, you can barely tell it’s a Chelsea boot.

BERNIE:
This is beautiful. Is it brown suede?

TARO:
Yes. We call that a tobacco mid-brown. It’s Blake stitched, with a leather sole and rubber insert, so it’s a very nice specification for the price point.

Buy Well and Wear for Years

Towards the end of the interview, the conversation moved onto price, value and how long a good pair of shoes should last.

BERNIE:
They’re things of beauty. The price point for something like the Benson is £265, isn’t it?

TARO:
Correct.

BERNIE:
They’re lovely. And sales are good?

TARO:
Sales are good. No complaints at this end.

BERNIE:
£265 is not an insignificant amount of money.

TARO:
No, but we see them more as investments.

If you buy the right pair of shoes, look after them, rotate them, use shoe trees and polish them, they can last many years.

It’s better to pay for a good-quality pair of shoes and enjoy them over a long period.

BERNIE:
I look at this and think it would outlast me. That is the thing, isn’t it? If you go cheap, you go short.

TARO:
Exactly.

Having said that, our number-one customer has bought 24 pairs of Thomas Bird shoes over five or six years. He collects them.

Goodness knows how he’s getting through that many, but we love that customer.

Read our complete shoe-care guide

Shop Shoe Trees | Shop Shoe Care

The Advantage of Being Small

The interview finished back where it started: with the team behind Thomas Bird.

BERNIE:
Ten years in, you have six people working with you at Riverside. The shoes are made in Italy and the people at Riverside distribute them, do they?

TARO:
Correct. Samantha and Mandy are in our fulfilment team, and they’re absolutely brilliant. They pick up the phone.

Because we’re a small company, we can talk directly to our customers. That’s a real advantage small businesses have in this industry; if you become too big, it can become impersonal.

They check the shoes, polish them and dispatch them around the world.

We also have Daniel handling social media, which is obviously very important, and then Adam and me.

BERNIE:
Very good. It’s so nice to meet you, Taro. You do fantastic work. Have a look at Thomas Bird online. Thank you, Taro.

More Than a Decade On

It was good to spend some time looking back at where Thomas Bird started, especially with a local BBC station in a county with such a long connection to shoemaking.

More than a decade on, the collection is larger and our shoes travel much further than they did at the beginning.

But much of what Taro and Bernie discussed is still at the heart of what we do: English design influence, Italian craftsmanship, colour, classical styles and a small team behind every order.

British Heart. Italian Soul.

Listen to the full BBC interview