In the wake of the greatest Ponzi scheme ever conducted, more than 400 of Bernie Madoff’s possessions were put up for auction. Held inside a soulless Miami convention centre in 2010, there was a Steinway piano, numerous golf clubs, a Rolex Cellini Moonphase, and around 37 pairs of Belgian loafers. The latter were finished in croc, suede, ostrich leather and soft velvet, and many were monogrammed with the initials BLM: Bernard Lawrence Madoff.
Despite demonstrating a certain absence of restraint when it came to handling other people’s money, no one can accuse Madoff of lacking rigour when it came to channelling ill-gotten funds into his own personal wardrobe. As Belgian Shoes’ most notorious fan, Madoff is not the first person to fall for the charms of the dainty dress shoes. What started out as a simple piece of footwear worn and assembled by monks in the venerated monasteries of Belgium, these nifty treads went on to become a solid hit on the stony blocks of New York’s upper east side and beyond.
Belgian Shoes was founded in 1955 by Henri Bendel, the man who brought Chanel to America and went on to found an eponymous women’s department store that was credited for introducing European luxury to an American market. Sensing a gap in the footwear space, Bendel packed his nephew off to Belgium to seek out something new and interesting. In Izegem, a sort of Belgian equivalent to Northampton an hour’s drive from Brussels, the younger Bendel happened upon a style of shoe that monks had been crafting by hand for centuries: an elegant, unstructured slipper with a low heel and a shallow vamp that was unisex by default.
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