Jeffery West

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 Jeffery as his father ran the family owned shoe factory in the town. Perhaps not a surprise therefore that they would go on to build an international footwear brand, but the fact that they began their first business as 16 year olds, selling shoes on various markets, shows remarkable prescience and motivation. At first, as Guy West explains, "Mark and I would buy rejects and ends of lines from his dad's factory and other factories, offer them as they were or customise them to sell them on."

They quickly moved on to having their own designs made up, but as West says, "because we were so young nobody would take us seriously." They had to approach a friend who worked as leather buyer in a local shoe factory to source and buy the leather for them.