Rubber Sole
How Soho's immigrant shoemakers shod The Beatles and The Queen
In 1963, my grandmother sent off a postal order for this Beatles poster she'd seen advertised in the Mirror, knowing I was a fan. I was only seven. Mind you, my grandad was seventy, and he was a fan too. In 1963, everybody was.
This poster (now creased, slightly torn but miraculously still intact) was my first glimpse of the band in colour, but what truly mesmerised me were their shoes. Even in those early days of Beatlemania, their footwear had already earned its own identity: Beatle boots—black leather with Cuban heels, centre stitching, and elasticated sides. It wasn’t until Christmas 1969 that I got my own pair—a slightly pared-down version that most boys of my age seemed to be wearing, sold by Freeman, Hardy & Willis. They were a footwear chain, not a late sixties prog supergroup, as their name might suggest.
The story of these boots begins at an unassuming address on the edge of Soho. Today, 96 Charing Cross Road houses a salsa bar—you can tell largely because of its name: Salsa! (the exclamation mark is theirs, not mine). It’s just down from Denmark Street and over the road from Old Compton Street, on the south-west corner of a bland late-twentieth-century office development. But in the 1960s, it was home to Anello & Davide, the family-run bespoke shoemakers who inadvertently crafted one of the century’s most iconic footwear styles. Their tale weaves together Italian immigrant craftsmanship, theatrical flair, rock and roll rebellion—and an unlikely royal connection.
Anello & Davide was founded in 1922 by the Gandolfi family, Italian emigrants who brought their leatherworking heritage to London. Though their pre-London history remains undocumented, their roots most probably lay in Italy’s shoemaking heartlands—Tuscany or Lombardy—regions ravaged by post-WWI economic hardship. Many skilled artisans moved abroad in search of better opportunities, and this part of London offered some home comforts. Charing Cross Road lies near the southern part of Soho, once known as Little Italy, with Italian food shops, cafés and clubs close at hand.
The shop thrived by catering to two worlds: luxury clients and the performing arts. Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles, and Roy Orbison wore their shoes, but it was the stage that became their speciality. The 1956 Pathé newsreel below captures their artisans hand-stitching ballet slippers; a skill later repurposed for West End productions like Cats and Miss Saigon. Indeed, Beatle boots were based on Spanish dance shoes.
In late 1962, John Lennon and Paul McCartney walked into Anello & Davide, seeking sleek continental boots inspired by styles they'd seen in Hamburg. The shop's location was a minute's stroll from Dick James Music (where Brian Epstein had set up office) and five minutes from Dougie Millings, the tailor on Old Compton Street who was running up their suits.
Stuart Sutcliffe (The Beatles’ original bassist) and his artist partner Astrid Kirchherr had introduced the band to European style. The Anello & Davide design was a cultural hybrid: the precision and slim silhouette of Italian tailoring, the clean lines of the British Mods, and the heel’s subtle reference to the Teds’ rock and roll swagger. By 1964, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Dave Clark Five and every aspiring musician were queuing down Charing Cross Road for them.
It was a queue that crossed the Atlantic. As Iggy Pop says:
“I was careful about what I wore… I started wearing the same pair of shoes that you can see in every photo of the Stooges from mid-’69 to the end of ’71. They were these authentic Anello & Davide Beatle boots. (Stooges bass player) Dave Alexander had brought them back from England… I used to wear them over and over, and they had holes in the bottom, like a cartoon hobo’s.”
Andy Warhol wrote:
“At Jane Holzer’s dinner I’d noticed (David) Bailey and Mick (Jagger). They each had a distinctive way of dressing: Bailey all in black, and Mick in light-coloured, unlined suits with very tight hip trousers and striped T-shirts—just regular Carnaby Street sport clothes, nothing expensive, but it was the way he put things together that was so great—this pair of shoes with that pair of pants that no one else would have thought to wear. And, of course, Bailey and Mick were both wearing boots by Anello and Davide, the dance shoemaker in London.”
Though Cliff Richard had been photographed in similar boots as early as 1960, it was The Beatles who cemented their legend—so thoroughly that the style took their name. Even as the band moved towards casual wear, Lennon clung to his pair, wearing them during the 1966 Rain sessions and as late as Hey Bulldog in 1968.
The story of Anello & Davide reflects Soho’s 1960s fashion economy—a vibrant ecosystem where immigrant craftsmanship, theatrical flair, and youth subcultures all came together. Soho in the 1960s was full of immigrant workshops, where Italian shoemakers and Jewish tailors thrived alongside music clubs and sex workers. Unlike chain stores, Anello & Davide’s handmade approach catered to stars of the stage and royalty, preserving pre-industrial craft in an era of growing standardisation.
Small, family-run businesses like Anello & Davide relied on word-of-mouth prestige, proximity to theatres and music clubs, and flexible specialisation—enabling them to pivot from ballet slippers to Beatle boots while making use of a network of highly skilled subcontractors throughout central and north London.
Styles and designs translated easily from performance wear to streetwear. The Cuban heel of Beatle boots was essentially the same as used on their flamenco and tango shoes, repurposed for the Fab Four. This, of course, defined another part of the ecosystem: celebrities—in this case, The Beatles—as brand ambassadors. Much like Instagram influencers today, the band received handcrafted footwear, while Anello & Davide gained mythic status.
The very nature of Soho’s unique fashion economy blurred class lines. The Gandolfis’ shoes were luxury items, but their adoption by a working-class band mirrored how Mods reappropriated Harrington jackets from the golfing set, Fred Perry polo shirts from tennis players, and later skinheads and suedeheads (and just about everyone else) reappropriated Doc Martens’ working footwear. Soho’s 1960s economy demonstrated that subcultures don’t just consume fashion—they hijack and redefine it, often starting in immigrant-run backrooms.
Anello & Davide’s story bridges not only stage and street, but also rock and royalty. Queen Elizabeth II went through hundreds of largely identical pairs of Anello & Davide shoes during her reign, and had at least ten pairs in rotation at any one time. One of their employees, who shared with Her Royal Highness the same size four feet, was responsible for ‘breaking in’ every new pair ordered. Her nickname was Cinders.
Here lies an interesting, and somewhat circular, point of history. While Anello & Davide innovated by adapting a Spanish flamenco shoe into a contemporary fashion item for men, the elasticated boot has a much longer history.
Joseph Sparkes Hall, who came up with the idea, was elastic boot maker to the Queen—Queen Victoria—and wrote in 1846:
“Her Majesty has been pleased to honour the invention with the most marked and continued patronage; it has been my privilege for some years to make boots of this kind for Her Majesty.”
The enterprising Sparkes Hall developed his elastic ankle boots from his workshop on Regent Street, just up from Soho. He was working at the cutting edge of technology. Elastic was in its very earliest days, and it took him considerable time and experimentation to perfect an elastic that was durable and reliable for use in a shoe. He came up with what later became known as the Chelsea boot, which in its time was as advanced as today’s most high tech trainer. Queen Victoria wore these boots as a symbol of modernity and progress. It is rubber, of course, that gives elastic its elasticity - but it wasn’t until 1876 that rubber-soled shoes were first manufactured - by the New Liverpool Rubber Company. Rubber soles were a Merseyside invention.
Rubber soles, of course, would not have been appropriate for any shoes made by Anello & Davide for Queen Elizabeth II. They were all soled with the finest calf leather, so one of Cinders’ duties was to rough up the soles to ensure there was no accidental royal slippage.
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A finely researched piece - who knew the Beatles had their feet in famous shoes ??
Ray.
Loved this,worked around the area & at Covent Garden. Brought back some memories.