In My View by Eric Musgrave: Footwear memories unboxed by Daniel Rubin
Is it my imagination or is the pace of change in the industry accelerating? The thought occurred to me as I read Sole Survivor, Daniel Rubin’s enjoyable memoir of his 50 years in the footwear trade. It is astonishing – and sobering – to reflect on the changes that sector has seen in just a couple of generations.
I am glad that the founder of the premium footwear brand Dune London has captured his story across almost 300 pages.
It seems hardly credible today that it was not that long ago Daniel, at the age of 28, joined his family business making women’s shoes in Dalston, East London. Originally he had heeded his father Louis’ advice to avoid the trade and had qualified as a chartered accountant, but in 1976 the lure of the footwear industry proved too strong.
Daniel Rubin
There certainly had been money to be made in the decades before then. Daniel’s grandfather Morris, a cobbler by trade, had arrived in London in the 1890s, a Jewish émigré from Russian pogroms. He had in his pocket just one German mark and he spoke only Yiddish. He found a job in a shoe workshop and in 1895 married Rachel, “a determined and forceful woman from Vilnius”. She persuaded Morris to set up his own workshop making slippers. By 1911 they had seven children to support, including the youngest, Daniel’s father, who was born in 1909.
At the age of 13 Daniel, who was born in July 1947, was delivered to the prestigious boarding school Stowe in Buckinghamshire by his father in a racing green vintage Mulliner Rolls-Royce, an indication of how well the family firm of M Rubin & Sons had prospered.
Daniel recalls it was one of about 50 shoe factories in London that benefited from the post-Second World War demand for fashion footwear. Many were run by families of Jewish immigrants.
Sole Survivor charts how Louis left the family business and went into partnership with another manufacturer, Jack Rose, a big character who drove a pink Rolls-Royce and smoked a large cigar. When his father became ill in 1976, Daniel joined Jack Rose Shoes, supposedly temporarily, to assist him. This was his first step on the path to becoming, as he admits, “a shoe obsessive” who owns more than 100 pairs of shoes and has thousands of photos of shoes taken from shop windows.
Jack Rose Shoes was soon succeeded by London Lane Shoes, another London-based manufacturer, but by 1986, making in the UK proved unsustainable in the face of lower-cost (and good quality) imports.
“The decision to leave manufacturing in 1986 had not been difficult,” he writes.
Between 1982 and 2009, Daniel was a footwear importer - first with Capital Shoes and then with Browning Enterprises, which he led from 1986 to 2009. His book is full of anecdotes about his adventures, especially in the Far East and Brazil, and, unlike in many memoirs, he provides more detail about his failures than his successes.
He recalls various travails, including getting food poisoning and being mistakenly arrested in Hong Kong for fraud.
The book also reminds readers of the fragile nature of a long supply chain, when quality problems on delivered stock could cause either cancellation or a hefty mark-down that would wipe out any profit on the deal.
Throughout the pages, he stresses the importance of personal relationships and honourable behaviour from both sides.
Poignantly, Daniel lists the major clients of his importing days: British Shoe Corporation, Olivers, Stead & Simpson, Tandem, Lennards (all in Leicester), Stylo Barratts (Bradford) and Timpsons (Manchester). He adds: “All have since closed”.
Given the seismic changes in the market, particularly the rise of the value players, and the practice of large retailers going directly to factories, Daniel was obliged to start his own premium brand. Originally in 1992 it was called Dune, to reflect the way fashion constantly moved on and developed like a sand dune, while in 2013 it was rebranded as Dune London.
Despite its years of success – Dune London was named Multiple Footwear of the Year for three successive years in 2014, 2015 and 2016 – the memoir lists plenty of failures, such as retail ventures in Switzerland and the USA.
The entire book is written in the same precise and thoughtful manner in which Daniel Rubin speaks. Not one of the industry’s showy types, he admits he has high and exacting standards. His description of saving the company from collapse during the COVID lockdown via a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) is very honest and touching.
As for many during and after the lockdown, it was a close-run thing.
Since 2023 he has stepped away from day-to-day involvement with Dune London, allowing him to write this book. It is a revealing and informative memoir of a significant period in the development of fashion and footwear retailing as we know it today.
Although he still admits misgivings about his decision, I am pleased Daniel Rubin became a shoe dog and has now told us about his experiences.
Just as a postscript, I am asked occasionally by figures in the industry if I can write their life story. My answer always is no. They must write their own story and I can edit it to improve its presentation. It is worth doing but no one should underestimate how long it will take. It will, however, be worth it. These reminiscences of times gone by are essential to capture sofuture generations may understand how we got to where we are.
Sole Survivor: How I Built A Global Shoe Brand by Daniel Rubin is published by Canbury Press. It is available through good bookshops, Amazon and the Dune London website.
