JOHN RUSHTON BY CHRIS KONTOS AND CEDRIC BARDAWIL
John Rushton is the last independent shoe retailer in London’s West End, since the 1980s he’s developed a strong working relationship with Northampton’s leading shoemakers including: Sanders, Crockett & Jones, Joseph Cheaney & Sons, Trickers. In this conversation, Chris Kontos and Cedric Bardawil trace the start of John’s career to the film industry and how he crossed over into the shoe business. They continue to discuss style and contemporary culture over freshly made salmon sandwiches.
Edited by Cedric Bardawil.
Photography by Chris Kontos and Cedric Bardawil.
Friday 21st November 2019 at Paul Rothe & Son, a deli in Marylebone, London
Chris Kontos: What was the first movie you worked on?
John Rushton: The first proper movie I worked on, was the picture “The Servant” directed by Joe Losey. He was an American director but had a cult following in France, it was never a film starring… (an actor), rather “le nouveau film de Joseph Losey”. He was a good guy!
Chris: How did you get started in the industry?
John: My father worked in the newsreel business; my grandmother was the first woman film producer in this country. My father worked for Pathé News and then Paramount news, in the 1930s they invited him to go to New York to work in the newsreel in New York – what they call the makeup editor. I never really wanted to do anything else growing up, I loved the movies.
Chris: Do you watch films these days?
John: Not enough, and when I do, I don’t get drawn in the way I used to.
Chris: I’ve been a bit disappointed in movies over the last few years. Has anything new drawn your attention?
John: Not really. I’d like to see the new Scorsese film, “The Irishman” – not only for the cast, and the story but the technical aspects: apparently, they used photoshop to make the actors look younger.
Film making is a craft. People get very pretentious about it now, especially the Italians and French “my art”. If you said to Carol Reed, David Lean or Fred Zinnemann “their art”, they’d laugh at you – they would say they were film directors and that’s what they do.
Chris: You mentioned you were working with Franco Zeffirelli.
John: Yes, I did three films with Zeffirelli and worked with Paramount Pictures.
The guy that ran Paramount Rome at the time was a great character – his name was Luigi Luraschi. One day he came into the cutting room and said, “I’ve got the first print of Godfather, do you want to see it?”. Do I want to see it! So, we went to the Paramount screening room near the American Embassy and he’d also invited three Italian directors, one of them was Gualtiero Jacopetti who made “Mondo Cane”, and several other weird Italian films.
Chris: Art house style.
John: He screened “Godfather”, part 1 and asked us what we thought. I said, it’s a fantastic film – incredible! He asked the Italians, “che cosa hai pensato?” what did you think? and they used the word “giallo” to describe it, as if it were some cheap little thriller. I can remember to this day, Luigi stood up and said: “listen you arseholes, this film in three months has made more money than the entire receipts of all your films put together over the last 20 years!” And that was it, they were lost for words.
Chris: They were being snobbish; it was one of the best films ever made!
John: Yes, “Godfather” part 1 and 2. In fact part 2 might be even better and I’ll tell you something about part 3: when I was working on a film in Rome with Zeffirelli called “Brother Sun Sister Moon”, the Catholic communications guy we had was a Jesuit priest from the parish of San Diego. The weirdest priest I’d ever known, he used to talk about screwing women and one thing and another.
Chris: A priest?
John: Yes, and he had a Maserati. Which I bought from him eventually. We had to go to the Vatican one day, his approach – he said listen, none of these guys will sign a damn thing. They all want to be cardinals, because in Rome if you were a cardinal or a priest, waiters would just bow and scrape and never charge you a dime! The old catholic church in Italy, very powerful! He made me realise, the political infighting was very heavily figured in Godfather part 3. It was very deep about what went on, the Vatican has its own private railway that goes from the centre of Rome to the airport every day. The Vatican City is a tax-free community, this priest would always tank the car up in there.
Chris: I wanted to ask since you mentioned these films, the priest and Italy. How did your relationship with Italy begin?
John: We had an editing service and Zeffirelli was coming over to do the early tests for Romeo and Juliet in 1967, what happened was – the film started and I was in the South of France at the Cannes Festival. I received a call – “can you come to Rome, straight away to edit Romeo and Juliet?” He used to shoot a lot of material, his films required careful handling.
Chris: They needed a lot editing?
John: Yep, careful editing to get it right. So, we went out there and developed this fantastic working relationship with him. He’s a tremendous anglophile, Zeffirelli – his biggest success was here with Judi Dench and John Stride at the Old Vic. Over there in Italy there was too much genuflecting, “Maestro, Maestro”, here as a bunch of English blokes we didn’t do all of that, we’d tell him if something wasn’t going to work or a waste of time. He liked that and always said: “I don’t want people who work by the rules. I want people who know the rules well enough to know how to break them.”
Chris: That’s a good quote!
Did you also work with him on the “Jesus Of Nazareth” film?
John: I did, yes!
Chris: The cast was out of this world and he’s known for his flamboyant production.
John: He started life as assisting Luchino Visconti, and Visconti had to have everything absolutely perfect.
Chris: Visconti is one of my favourites!
John: “Death in Venice”, that’s a beautiful film to look at and “The Leopard”, that’s a masterpiece.
Chris: Did you spend a long time in Italy?
John: Three years and I revisit often. One of my dearest friends, lives 30 km south of Florence, I was there 3-4 weeks ago and went to the Zeffirelli foundation. He wasn’t so popular in Italy and they have a very good expression: “Che me ne frega!” - what do I care, because his films were internationally successful.
Chris: How did your menswear adventure coincide with the film business?
John: In the mid 1980s, an old friend of mine who was ex-BBC asked me if I wanted to get involved in a film on Aérospatiale. He said, come on the shoot and edit it! I thought why not, first class travel around the world. I spent a lot of time on it, because it was shot ad-hoc. Then another came up, which I took. Returning here, I was out of the loop in the film business and took an opportunity in the shoe business. It didn’t come out of nowhere, I always liked shoes – my father was a well-dressed man, I liked to wear nice things, wear good shoes and here I am.
Cedric Bardawil: What was the clothing scene like in London at the time?
John: There were a couple of places on Shaftsbury avenue that did American clothing. There was a man in Soho when I was still in the film industry, who really changed everything – he was called John Michael Ingram and he had shops: John Michael and Sportique. He had the best of traditional English clothing, not boring stuff: lovely tweed jackets, well cut trousers, beautiful ties and as well as great Italian and American stuff. Instead of going to Austin Reed or Simpsons, you would find a refined selection.
Cedric: And there was crossover with the films, in a literal sense - the way the actors dressed.
John: One of the films I loved was the “Sweet Smell of Success” with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. It was one of the first independent productions. Tony Curtis would wear these nicely fitted suits, a white shirt, slim tie – I thought wow, he looks good!
Chris: These American actors created a style, you were showing me the book “Hollywood and the Ivy Look” at your store, even John Cassavetes was featured in there.
John: Well what I like about the Ivy style is that as opposed to the Italian style, which is very “look at me”, it is comfortable. You’d see these actors wearing a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, a pair of well-cut trousers, some nice loafers and they looked great. The essence is you have to feel good in your own skin: wearing something in which you feel good, and if you don’t feel good you certainly ain’t gonna look good! I’ve always believed that.
Chris: Particularly shoes, we were talking about Alden the other day. It’s really one of the most comfortable shoes, you don’t even have to break them in.
John: Alden make great shoes! I used to sell Allen Edmonds, which were on a par with Alden and on the box, they would say “fit to fly”, when you’d turn them over between the heel and the sole, there’s a shank. On a normal shoe, the welt would end at the heel and the heel would be nailed on. Allen Edmonds as part of their goodyear welting process would run the sole 360 degrees, one piece of leather, so there was no shank and they were flexible heel to toe. I’ve still got several pairs, three in cordovan and a pair of suede loafers that I treasure – they fit like slippers!
Chris: I have this expression: “like putting your feet in a rabbit’s ear.”
John: <laughs> That’ll do! The British shoes tend to be a bit stiffer, of the volume quality shoe manufactures, Crockett and Jones make great shoes and they care about what they do. It’s not just “that’ll do attitude”, no, it has to be right.
Chris: Do you think a brand can do this without compromise now, during our times?
John: Absolutely, yes, The Sanders shoes I’m selling at the moment. I think they make the best quality value for money shoes in Northampton and it’s still a family business.
Chris: I got the feeling you don’t like black shoes.
John: Ha, you got the feeling, did you? It’s not that, it’s that there are so many shades to brown. It’s also this insistence in England that if you’re wearing a navy suit, you have to wear black shoes. The Italians do many things crazily, but they have an understanding of colour and how you can put colours together - I got into brown shoes there.
Englishmen like red socks, colourful trousers, which is very traditional in many ways however when it comes to wearing a suit, they are fixed, which by the way, is changing.
In today’s Telegraph business section, there’s a photograph of the European Central Bank meeting. They’re wearing suits, all with open neck shirts, it looks terrible – so naff. They are trying so hard to be “cool”, it’s not, it looks awful – they are old guys who should wear a proper suit, shirt and a tie! And look smart!
Chris: Last night we were at the Drake’s launch on Savile Row. 90% of the people at the event were tremendously dressed. I was at a loss for words: for the imagination, the attention to detail, the quality of what people wore.
John: Young people?
Cedric: Young and older. A lot of young men in their 20s wearing sports jackets and ties, in a new way, with their favourite jeans, shoes and even baseball caps.
Chris: How do you feel young people embrace clothing culture these days?
John: I feel people get too affected by trends or what a journalist says. I can’t stand “what you can and can’t do!”
Cedric: Also, people who are too scared to wear what they want. You once mentioned a man coming in for pair of shoes but having to ask his wife’s opinion.
John: Not just someone, it’s a regular occurrence, sadly. There is a branch of Englishmen at the moment who seem incapable of buying a pair of shoes, without their partner’s approval.
Cedric: What’s your opinion on trainers?
John: There was a picture of Ian McKellen published the other day in a style section wearing a cobalt blue suit, a scarf draped around his shoulders, a hat and a pair of black and white trainers. The feature saying how cool he looked, he looked absurd! Firstly, cobalt blue isn’t a colour for a man in his 80’s. If he’d put an understated suit and a decent pair of shoes on, he’d have looked elegant. I’ve gotten used to this now, but it doesn’t mean it looks good!
Cedric: It goes back to what you were saying earlier: media informing how people dress.
John: Right, haven’t they got an opinion about things? I think it’s sad when people, men and women, lose the ability to be stylish – not fashionable, but have a sense of style.
—we leave Paul Rothe & Son and walk to John’s shop—
Chris: Oh, by the way John, have you still got the Maserati?
John: Ha, no! We had the petrol crisis here when I brought it back. I got £3,500 for it; I don’t want to even begin to tell you what it’s worth today!
—we arrive at John Rushton on Wimpole Street—
Cedric: Returning to what you said about those vintage dining adverts on the walk over, how well everyone dressed during the post-war period.
John: If I may say so, it’s encapsulated in one word: style. People had style. Women were into fashion and all the rest of it, but guys, English men in particular dressed traditionally but had style. They always wore good shoes, nice shirts, no one worried if it was worn or frayed around the edges, as long as it was a good suit. It ain’t like that anymore! The quality of things has deteriorated.
Cedric: Now high street retailers make clothes to have a shelf life – they’ll last a season. Saying that, there are still brands who take pride in the quality of their clothes. I recently bought some shirts by Mercer & Sons in the USA and they guarantee that they’ll stay impeccable for over 150 washes.
John: Yes, I know Mercer and Sons! Beautiful shirts based on the original Brooks Brothers. I had my three Brooks Brothers shirts collars reversed by Alain, the tailor downstairs. I love still being able to wear those shirts after all those years, in fact, at the time it was a service they’d offer – once you’d frayed the collars and the cuffs to death, bring them in and they’d reverse them.
Cedric: One thing you mentioned that I thought we could finish on: women and style. Classic shoes are similar, so are shirts – although buttoned on opposite sides.
John: You know I once gave my granddaughter an Ivy book for girls. Of course, you see the girls wearing plaid skirts, knee length socks and loafers. Have you ever seen the Fred Astaire film with Leslie Caron, “Daddy Long Legs”? She wore the whole thing and looked very good! Then you have the same girls going to the Debs in their long ball gown and the rest of it. They looked very cool.
Cedric: It’s a style that works. Whit Stillman dresses the girls this way in his 90s film trilogy. I’ll never forget how Chloë Sevigny looked in the “Last Days of Disco”, she wears classic shirts, pleated skirts, oversized coats, but in a way that’s contemporary.
John: Well you know the first Hollywood start to do it was Katharine Hepburn. She used to wear men’s shirts rolled up, she had the mane of red hair piled up, a pair of nice trousers and what she called “sensible shoes” a pair of classic two tones. Then Deborah Kerr in the “Grass is Greener”, the first time you see her in the film she has a beige sweater, cream shirt, beautifully cut pants and tanned loafers with tassels. She just looked great! There’s a certain era of English women who knew how to put it all together, it wasn’t carefully thought out.
