Heritage British-Made Men's Loafers, Penny Loafers and Moccasins — Voted by the Community

Loafers are laceless slip-on shoes, and their story runs through both Britain and Norway. In London in 1926, Raymond Lewis Wildsmith of Wildsmith Shoes made a slip-on country house shoe for a royal client to wear indoors. The design later joined the firm's ready-to-wear range, first as model 582 and then as the Model 98, and is often described as one of the first loafers. In Norway, the shoemaker Nils Gregoriusson Tveranger introduced the Aurland shoe around 1930, a slip-on that resembled the moccasins worn by the Iroquois. It was exported to the United States as the "Norwegian moccasin", and in the 1930s G.H. Bass of Maine began making its Weejun loafer with a leather strap across the front. The tassel loafer followed in 1957, made by Alden for Brooks Brothers. Northamptonshire, long the centre of English shoemaking, now makes Goodyear-welted loafers alongside its brogues and boots. A welted shoe can be resoled many times rather than replaced.