Don't Forget Footwear... Nothing goes better with a beautiful suit than a pair of custom-made shoes. And handmade shoes from Perry Ercolino are as stylish and stunning as they are supportive and structurally sound. Ercolino will meet with you personally to take measurements and imprints, draft a design and select materials. He'll have a last - a 3-D model around which your bespoke shoes are built - hand-carved in England. Then he'll spend more than 60 hours constructing your custom shoes, meeting with you again to make any minor revisions needed before your shoes are soled and finished. When everything is perfect, Ercolino will personally deliver or ship your shoes. It'll take about 16 weeks, but it's well worth the wait. Subsequent pairs are handmade in about eight weeks.

How do you get a president to fill your shoes?

It takes persistence and patience.

Perry Ercolino decided a couple of administrations ago that he would like to make shoes for a sitting president. The son of Doylestown’s longtime shoemaker, Ercolino has continued in the family business, but with a difference.

He makes custom shoes. He starts by taking measurements and sends them to England where a skilled artisan translates this information into a pair of hand-carved lasts, the three-dimensional model of the foot. The last determines the shoe's fit, and a custom-cut last ensures a custom-fitting shoe. The last also gives the shoe its shape; thus an elegant last is an essential element of an elegant shoe.

"Perry Ercolino is one of the few shoemakers capable of crafting what is called a whole cut shoe - one produced from a single piece of leather cut into the shape of a shoe and stitched together with a single seam at the heel. Ercolino's collection, made by hand in Pennsylvania and sold through custom tailor Franco Ercolé in New York, includes oxfords and wingtips with antique-looking finishes.
"Bespoke Apparel" Robb Report - Special Issue, June 2007