Envoy release

Tricker’s - Kudu Leather & David Livingstone

Each pair of handmade Tricker’s boots or shoes undergoes 260 individual processes, taking up to six months from beginning to end. A team of master shoemakers in the Northampton factory, opened in 1904, continue to use traditional techniques and specialist tools, carrying forward the shoemaking legacy of the north of England.

This season Tricker’s, inspired by the travels and work of famed Scottish explorer David Livingstone, have introduced a new leather to the men’s and women’s collections - antelope kudu. The soft leather bears the natural marks, scuffs and scars of the kudu hide. The nature of this organic material means that each pair of brogues and boots are completely unique.

David Livingstone was born in Blantyre, Scotland in March 1813. A disciplined Christian upbringing, and working in a cotton mill from the age of ten, led him to pursue a missionary life. Some years of study and a spell at war later, he set sail for South Africa in 1840. The following years were spent exploring the Kalahari region and the Zambezi, bringing civilisation, commerce and Christianity to interior Africa. He visited places no other European had ever been - and he brought many important discoveries about the African people and their way of life to Victorian Britain.

“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”