In October 1961, on their way back from Paris, John Lennon and Paul McCartney walked into Anello and Davide on Charing Cross Road and ordered boots. The shop had been making footwear for the stage since the 1920s, and the thing that caught their eye was a flamenco style boot with a Cuban heel and elastic down the sides. They asked for the heel to be built up. After that it turned up on every record sleeve and every television appearance for the next three years.
We still sell Beatle boots steadily, and people still get them wrong. Too pointed, too high, worn under a trouser that swallows the whole shape.
Charing Cross Road, 1961
Anello and Davide had been shoemaking in London since the early 1920s, mostly for theatre and ballet, and that heritage explains the boot better than any style history does. A dance shoe is built on a narrow last, with the heel set well back and the waist cut close, because a performer needs the foot held still. Carry that over into a street boot and you get something that grips the instep and looks longer than it is.
The original was closer to a flamenco boot, with a heel around 4cm. What came back was a close fitting ankle boot with a pointed toe, a taller stacked heel and an elastic gusset on each side. By the time the band were on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in October 1963, half of Carnaby Street was copying it and the copies were mostly awful.
The word Beatle boot took hold almost immediately, which is unusual. Most subcultural footwear gets named years later by people writing about it. This one had a name in the shops within about eighteen months of the first order going in, and it has never been called anything else since.
The Chelsea Boot Came First
The elastic sided boot is Victorian. J Sparkes Hall, bootmaker to Queen Victoria, patented his in 1837, and the stretch came from metal coil springs sewn down each side. Rubber gussets only arrived around 1840, once Charles Goodyear's 1839 vulcanising discovery gave the trade a rubber that held its spring. Either way the selling point was the same, which was that the wearer could get a boot on without a servant or a buttonhook. It stayed a riding and walking boot for the next century, dull and useful.
The King's Road took it up at the end of the fifties, the name Chelsea boot stuck to it, and in 1961 it was sat in a theatrical shoemaker's window waiting for two customers from Liverpool with money. A Beatle boot is a Chelsea boot with the heel raised and the toe drawn to a point. Everything underneath is the same idea. Anyone selling you a grand narrative about a separate invention is having you on.
The Heel, and How High Is Too High
A Cuban heel is a stacked block, straight at the back and tapered slightly at the front, and it normally runs between 3.5cm and 5cm. Past 5cm it stops behaving like a Cuban heel and starts throwing your weight onto the ball of the foot, which you will feel by the third pint and hate by the end of the night. The tapering is what keeps it looking like men's footwear and not a costume.
We would take 4cm as the sweet spot. It is enough lift to lengthen the leg and change the way a narrow trouser hangs, without tipping you forward. If you are already over six foot, drop to 3.5cm. And if you are pairing them with something from our mod suits, remember the trouser was almost certainly cut for a flat shoe, so the hem will sit shorter than you expect.
Pointed, Chisel or Almond
Toe shape is where most of the difference between a good pair and a costume pair lives. Almond is the forgiving one, and it is what we end up recommending after a long exchange of emails. A true point is sharper, and it needs a narrow foot and a bit of nerve. Chisel toes are a modern intervention and they never look right on this boot, because the flat front fights the curve of the heel.
| Boot | Toe | Heel | Where we wear it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beatle boot | Pointed or almond | 3.5cm to 5cm Cuban | Under a suit, with slim jeans, on a stage |
| Winklepicker | Long and sharply pointed | 2cm to 4cm, often lower | Rockabilly and psychobilly, late fifties dress |
| Chelsea boot | Round or almond | 1cm to 3cm block | Weekends, with cords or plain denim |
| Western cut Cuban boot | Pointed with a lifted toe box | 4cm to 6cm, angled | Country nights, bootcut trousers |
Beatle Boot or Winklepicker
The winklepicker got its name at the seaside, from the pin used to pick a winkle out of its shell, and it belonged to the Teddy boys before any mod got near it. The two boots look related in a photograph and behave completely differently on a foot.
The practical difference is where your toes actually stop. A Beatle boot's point is mostly space your foot occupies, so the leather creases where your foot bends. A winklepicker carries an empty spike out front, sometimes 4cm of it, which is why the tip collapses and curls upward if you never tree them. If you want the drama, buy the winklepicker on purpose. Do not buy a Beatle boot with an exaggerated point and hope.
For a first pair of either, we would steer you towards the almond toe every time, and the rest of our mod footwear will give you a sense of how the shapes sit next to each other.
Sizing, Gussets and the First Fortnight
Beatle boots run narrow. Nearly all of them do, whoever makes them, because the last descends from a theatrical shoe and nobody has redrawn it. If you take a wide fitting in a brogue, expect width to be your problem, not length, and take the half size up. Our size guide is worth two minutes before you order anything with a gusset in it.
That gusset should be tight enough that the boot stays put when you lift your heel, and slack enough that your foot goes in without a wrestling match. Give a new pair a fortnight of short wears, an hour or two at a time. The vamp does the stretching. People who wear a new pair to an all dayer email us afterwards with opinions.
- Try them on late in the day, when your feet have swollen a little
- Check the heel slip with a thin sock, because a thick sock will hide it
- Press down over the joint of the big toe and make sure the leather, not your foot, has the room
- Walk on a hard floor, not a carpet, since carpet flatters every boot ever made
What We Wear Them With, and How to Keep Them
A narrow trouser with no break, finishing on the top of the boot or an inch above it. Sta Press in stone or black is the easy answer and a slim leg jean with a single turn works if the hem clears the shaft. Anything with width at the bottom eats the boot and you have paid for a silhouette you cannot see.
Up top, keep the volume small. A short bum freezer jacket or a slim three button suit sits right, because the boot has already added height and any bulk across the shoulders unbalances it. With a knitted polo and a slim trouser you get most of the way to a 1964 photograph without looking like you are in a tribute act.
Care is mostly about the elastic. It perishes when it is stored stretched, so pull the boots off by the heel rather than levering one off with the toe of the other, and keep them on trees between wears. Cedar stops the point curling. Do that and a good pair will outlast three cheap ones, which is the whole argument for buying properly from our boots range instead of chasing the cheapest pointed thing online.
Beatle Boots FAQ
Five things worth knowing before a pair goes in the basket.
- Who made the original Beatle boots? Anello and Davide, a theatrical shoemaker on Charing Cross Road in London. The band ordered them in late 1961 after seeing a Cuban heeled flamenco style boot and asking for the heel to be raised.
- How high is a Cuban heel on Beatle boots? Usually between 3.5cm and 5cm. We would point most people at 4cm, since it lengthens the leg without tipping your weight forward onto the ball of the foot.
- Are Beatle boots the same as Chelsea boots? Not quite. A Beatle boot is a Chelsea boot with a raised Cuban heel and a pointed or almond toe, so the elastic gusset and the pull tab are shared but the profile is very different.
- Do Beatle boots run small? They run narrow rather than short. If you normally take a wide fitting, go up a half size and expect the width across the joint to be the deciding factor.
- What trousers work with Beatle boots? Anything slim that finishes on or just above the top of the boot. Sta Press, tonic trousers and a slim leg jean all work, while wide legs cover the boot completely.