Born and bred in Northampton, the historical centre of the British shoemaking and leather industries, childhood friends Mark Jeffery and Guy West were surrounded by tradition and history from the word go, even more so for Mark as his father ran the family owned shoe factory in the town.

They founded Jeffery-West in 1987 and created a twelve-piece Jeffery~West sample range, with which they approached prospective retailers before approaching a potential bank manager who, as West says, “sympathetically said that he would give us a try." He explains further that because he and Mark were only in their early twenties, it was for the bank “quite a gamble because at the time there was absolutely nobody in the industry as young as us.”

From the outset their intention was that Jeffery~West shoes would be imbued with all the craftsmanship, quality, and pedigree available in having shoes manufactured by Northampton factories with hundreds of years of experience. Their designs saw welt cutting edge styles, overt elegance, fulsome flamboyance, and innovative new lasts. They utilised an array of leathers and colours - imagination all too often lacking in men’s shoes.

To show the cloven hoof is, as the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable states, is 'to show a knavish intention.' Since the first collection all Jeffery~West shoes and boots bear the signature style of a cleft heel; their wearers continue to tread a line between respectability and rascality.