Many shoe brands have a premium collection which sits higher than its main offerings. The reason why they brought out this collection are many folds, such as Crockett & Jones made shoes for John Lobb with a higher specification and John Lobb bought Edward Green factory to make shoes themselves. Crockett & Jones cannot abandon this upgraded production line so released Handgrade collection. The story of Alfred Sargent Handgrade is almost the same, and this time the actor became Gaziano & Girling.
How premium collection is better than main collection is not the topic of this article, and I only want to talk about its naming.
Premium collection of John Lobb is called Prestige, quite straightforward, and Spanish brand Crownhill uses the word Premium, same taking.
Gaziano & Girling chooses the word Optimum, that is not modest as it means the best.
Edward Green uses a very decent phrase Top Drawer, it means the highest level of society, authority, or excellence, the same meaning but less known.
Italy hosts too many brands, and some of them certainly have different collections, however, the premium collection is much less recognized than its English peers. Santoni installs the highest with name Limited Edition. Salvatore Ferragamo uses Tremezza Special Edition. Antonio Meccariello’s Aurum collection is super highly praised, and its meaning? Gold.
This differentiation is not very popular in France and they are happy with one level. Recently, Corthay feels its shoes are too affordable and released premium collection Petite Mesure, which is more or less a MTO service, very alike Edward Green Top Drawer. Petite comes from its bespoke service name, Grand Mesure.
Back to England, if you think handgrade is more modest than above ones, it is still exaggerated as how machined made shoes can be called hand? The same naming method is copied by Portuguese brand Carlos Santos.
Church’s word Custom Grade clearly is teasing its American customer, as custom this word never finds a place in England.
Cheaney’s premium collection is called Imperial.
As to this word, Americans stand up. Back to their heydays, the best shoe brand in the world Florsheim uses Imperial and even Royal Imperial.
Hanover is in the army of Imperial as well.
Johnston & Murphy likes to use the word Aristocraft originated from aristocrat, and even Crown Aristocraft.
Bostonian which later went under the umbrella of Clarks used Crown Windsor to solute to English world.
Note, these American brands survive to this day, however their shoes are absolutely rubbish, don’t even take a look.
In Spain, the name is more artful such as Artista collection from TLB Mallorca.
It is artist in Spanish. Meermin names its handwelted collection Maestro, master in Spanish, not bad.
So premium collection names stop here, a reverse question, if they release a entry level, how to name it?
This example is very few, and Gaziano & Girling uses the word Classic, and John Lobb frowns.
Another example is modern American brand J.FitzPatrick, to counterattack Meermin, its entry level is called JF.
As I always tell, you cannot treat shoes only as a functional gear, it has a lot of cultural content.