Developed in the early 1800s as a functional and elegant indoor shoe, velvet slippers were worn to protect the expensive rugs and wooden floors that adorned England's palaces and grand homes from dirt. Legend has it that it was Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, a well-respected consort of Queen Victoria, who began wearing his English slippers out to black-tie events. Since then, it became commonplace for gentlemen of the upper class to wear these to clubs and in smoking rooms.

Our Prince Albert smoking slippers are individually handcrafted by our slipper factory in England. Each pair is hand cut, painstakingly embroidered, closed, and hand-lasted by a handful of artisans with over 150 years of combined experience. The process is so laborious that this factory only produces smoking slippers. We take great pleasure in the fact that the production process has remained largely unchanged over the last century. This is luxury, made the old-fashioned way.