Freddie Mercury’s platform shoes, extensively worn in the mid-1970s

Freddie Mercury’s platform shoes, extensively worn in the mid-1970s

a pair of 1970s black leather shoes by Alan Mair, with square toe, black lace-up fastening, brown stacked wood heels (7.5 cm. high), tan leather lining, leather soles, unlabelled, no size present, much worn

The heavy signs of wear on these shoes indicates that they were a favourite Freddie’s worn both on and off stage. The black equivalent of lots 149 and 171, it seems likely that they would have been worn on stage with Freddie’s two Wendy de Smet ‘Black Queen’ catsuits, lot 45 (‘The Spine Suit’) and 152.

Although these platform shoes are unmarked, they can be identified as hand-made Alan Mair leather shoes by their distinctive style.

“I don’t know if you realise, but you’re not considered cool unless you’re wearing Alan Mair boots.” This is how Alan Mair recalls Freddie praising his footware when both men were working in fashion in Kensington Market in the very early 1970s. The two men's lives were closely entwined for several years - Mercury even worked at Mair's boutique - so it is fitting that Freddie's favourite boots came from Mair's workship.

Alan Mair, a 1960s beat musician from Glasgow, moved into the fashion industry in the late 1960s, opening a stall in Kensington market in 1970. In a recent interview Mair recalled that “I knew a lot of bands so I started making clothes for them.” Mair initially sold leather trousers, then fringed jackets and outfits for men and women, before specialising in handmade leather boots. Mair cornered the market with his shoe and boot designs in the early 1970s and Alan Mair Boots became synonymous with hip fashionistas supplying everyone from Santana, Yes, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Keith Moon, Alex Harvey to David Bowie and Queen. Mair recalled: “One of the best adverts was the Santana double-gate sleeve [1972]. The whole band are sat on this couch and wearing my boots. Early shots of Queen were the same.” 

Mair recounts how in 1970 burgeoning musicians Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor had their clothes stall opposite his own Kensington market boutique. Freddie told him that he’d been to a party recently where everyone, men, and women, were wearing the boots. Soon afterwards Mair was looking for someone to manage his Kensington store (as Mair's business grew, he could no longer focus on his shop himself) so he called on Freddie to oversee the running of his main boutique. Mair’s store was far busier than Freddie’s own clothes emporium, and now Roger Taylor had moved on from their business Freddie decided to close his own shop down and become Mair’s full-time shop manager.

Mair described Freddie as a good salesman, very quiet and easy going, likeable and modest about his own songwriting career. It was whilst working in the store that Freddie met David Bowie for the first time in 1972 shortly after the release of Ziggy Stardust. Despite the record’s success, Bowie was still very hard up and when he visited the store Alan Mair recalls asking Freddie to fit Bowie with a pair of platform boots for free as Bowie couldn’t afford to buy them himself. Freddie worked in the Alan Mair Boot store between circa 1970 until the release of Queen’s first hit, 'Seven Seas Of Rhye', on 23 February 1974, his wages providing his main source of income before Queen’s commercial success.

The characteristics of the Alan Mair boot are: square toed, with double leather soles and a stacked heel. Famous for their platform boots in particular, Alan Mair’s boots had anything between half an inch to 2-inch platforms. When they did a three-layer sole the middle one was a different colour. For the soles a heavy adhesive was used rather than stitching.

LITERATURE

Lesley-Ann Jones, Bohemian Rhapsody: The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury, Hodder & Stoughton, paperback edition, 2011, pp.134-135

David McLean, ‘The Glasgow Bootmaker Who Ordered Freddie Mercury To Fit David Bowie With A Pair Of Platforms’, Glasgow Live, 27 March 2022

‘When Freddie Mercury Sold Boots at Kensington Market’ Interview with Alan Mair and Tom Semioli, 25 March 2020, You Tube

‘Alan Mair: Bootmaker To The Stars’ internet article on Ops & Ops, 18 August 2019

Jacky Smith & Jim Jenkins, Queen As It Began, Omnibus Press, 2022, pp.82-83

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