Mr Freedom X George Cox

Two titans of UK fashion and style come together to produce an ultra limited edition collection with only 24 pairs of each style available. Hand made with love in the England.

George Cox has been the first choice for subcultures and storytellers since 1949. Today, they continue to make the very same Creeper shoes that they originated over 75 years ago.

 

Established in 1906 by George James Cox, the brand began as a side gig of Cox’s brewing trade, where he would move materials and components between local factories, to eventually produce shoes that he developed a business in selling. After the First World War, the trade had grown sufficiently for him to set up a factory of his own in his home of Wellingborough, and so Castle Works, a former brewery and swimming pool, came into being.

 

His son, George Hamilton Cox, grew the business with countrywide selling via the Chris Hatton chain of shoe shops, before moving the brand forward into the post-war period through more fashionable styles, targeting the British youth.

 

In 1949, inspired by a tip-off by the company’s London agent, a new style was created in response to the Parisian fashion trend of thick crepe-soled shoes, worn mostly by young men who had become attached to their military issue boots of the same construction. Once the new design was paired with dandy Neo-Edwardian drape suits, a generation defining cult was born, the Teds.

When Trevor Myles and Tommy Roberts opened Mr Freedom in 1969, they captured the spirit of the 1950s revival of the time, selling George Cox Creepers in vivid blues and reds, and inspiring a young Malcolm McLaren, who would go on to associate the shoes with punk for years to come…

 

Over 50 years later, George Cox and Mr Freedom have been reunited.