I met Steve at the Divine factory in Northamptonshire. The building, tucked away on a street in
a small village was quiet and still. For a while I wasn't sure if I had found the right place,
but I walked the length of the red brick factory and found a solid grey door with a small intercom
next to it. Above the intercom in very un-factory like purple letters was the sign reading 'Divine',
surrounded by stars. This definitely was the place.
Once I had been buzzed in, I found a small shop lined with the tallest, shiniest and most impractical
shoes and boots possible. With them hung an array of clothes that would look perfect on a club
dance-floor. Divine now offers a wide range of cool and kinky clothes to match their carefully
well made but outrageous shoes. Steve joined me and whilst I fiddled with my unprofessional
interviewing equipment he told me how Divine had come to be the subject of an immensely
successful documentary.
Originally the company that Steve and his father before him had worked for produced traditional men's
shoes. The leather brogues and boots had been made there for over a hundred years and made the company
very successful with a large part of its market abroad, particularly in Germany. However, before the
last election the Conservatives decided to raise the value of the pound.
When Labour got in they followed this monetary policy with further increases. The effect was that
suddenly without the company's costs changing at all, their shoes cost a huge amount more abroad.
The customers in Germany dried up. Their orders went from thousands to twenties and before their
eyes their export base disappeared. Worse still, the strong pound meant that English customers could
import shoes for much less and those customers vanished as well.
It was at this point that Steve got a call from Sue Sheppard from Laces in Folkestone, who had heard
of the company through the Footwear Federation. She rang to ask if they could supply shoes for her.
Her existing suppliers were very poor and caused all sorts of problems - bad fitting and inconsistent
quality, unpredictable delivery times and unreliable quantities and cost. Though Steve had never
had anything to do with the fetish market, he could see that there was something that his company
could do. They could answer those four problems - cost, fitting, delivery times and quantities.
With this in mind, Steve rang round all the adult, fetish and other shops he could find and
asked them what they needed from a supplier, and if he could help them. Many of them were interested.
Up until that point, he had thought that fetish was a tiny minority and that his company couldn't make
enough sales to make it worthwhile. But as he asked, he found more and more people saying they
wanted exactly these kind of shoes.
From this beginning, Steve set up Divine to market fetish footwear made at his factory and went
to the Dusseldorf footwear show in March that year to see if this radical change of direction
would work. They had plenty of interest and it looked like Divine could be a success.
It's one thing to change the focus of your business, another if that business has traditional
and family roots. It is most amazing though that Steve allowed a BBC film crew to follow him
on this bold new venture. He told me that it all happened really quickly in just five
days. Steve received another call from the Footwear Federation. The Financial Times was asking
for quotes for a piece on the state of the footwear industry. He told them that from his
perspective, the industry was in great difficulty and that for his company, Divine would be
a make or break move. If he couldn't make a success of Divine, then his company would close.
The article was printed a day or so later. That same afternoon, he received a call from the
BBC. The series and show producers for the documentary 'Trouble At the Top' wanted to film
what his company was doing. Divine had all the right ingredients for their program - a company
in difficulty, a family business with a plan to solve their problems. On top of that it also
had that extra ingredient - sex! Or if not that, then the next best thing - sexy shoes!
At first, Steve didn't want to have anything to do with the documentary. The producers said it would be
like a fly on the wall programme and there had been a rash of terrible documentaries like that
at that time which showed their subjects in the worst light. He didn't want
a team of camera men hanging round the factory making his employees and him look bad. The
BBC had to work hard to convince him that the show was educational. They couriered up all
of the tapes of the previous series the following day and he sat down and watched all of
them. It took seven hours, with Steve making notes about what was good and what was bad
about them. He made more notes about what the producers should and shouldn't be allowed
to do.
After his marathon viewing session, Steve talked to them. They really wanted to keep
control - in common with most television programs. His father had told him that he
shouldn't let them in, but the more he thought about it the more Steve realised that
the factory was his world. Whilst they were filming there the BBC would have to do what
they were told - Divine would have control. Eventually, he decided to go ahead, but under
the conditions that they filmed the photoshoot that Steve was planning, the footwear
exhibition in Dusseldorf and going to the Erotica Exhibition in London. By including
these things, Steve reasoned the programme makers would see his world - the factory,
they would see their business through Dusseldorf and they would see his company
building up Divine. Hopefully the documentary would show that it wasn't just about
one particular angle - that this was a real business fighting to survive.
The BBC filled ninety hours of tape filming Divine's first steps. After they had finished filming,
they went away to edit the tapes down into the forty minute long programme. At that
point, they told Steve that Divine would probably be the third programme in the series.
The lead programme would be about the launch of the Russian edition of Vogue, which would
be used to promote the whole series. However, once they had started to edit the tapes,
they told Steve that the programme looked good and that perhaps it would be the
second in the series. Then they told him that Divine came across really well
and asked if they could use it as the first programme and to promote the whole
series. Steve was elated.
He watched the program tapes and was still happy with the result - apart from one
short scene where a few of his workers had been filmed outside the factory waiting
to start work and having a quick cigarette! The BBC needed him to help them promote the
documentary and the series. They gave him a press secretary, an office in the BBC and in a
rollercoaster ride took him to be photographed by the newspapers, the TV Times and other
television guides. The documentary was going to be big news.
Originally Steve had wanted to hire a hall and invite the people in the company and the
village, their friends and family to watch the broadcast of the documentary together.
He had figured that this would be the best way to get the embarrassment over with. However,
the BBC had other plans and brought Danielle, the first Divine model and Steve to
London to do TV and radio interviews. Instead of watching the broadcast with friends,
Steve found himself staying along with Danielle in a hotel full of builders. Though he
desperately wanted to watch the programme, there was a match on. He convinced the other
hotel guests to watch the documentary instead of the match by telling them that the
programme would feature more people like the beautiful Danielle.
The next morning the series producer rang Steve. The programme, now titled 'The Kinky
Boot Factory' had received over 3.2 million viewers, a record for documentary of this
type on BBC2. He left the hotel to return home, thinking that it couldn't be that big,
but was stunned when he was recognised on the tube. In fact the whole carriage wanted
to chat, and he was asked questions about Divine all the way back to Kings Cross. Once
Steve was back at the factory the phones didn't stop ringing with people offering him
congratulations. In fact back at the BBC, the broadcasters had to get extra bandwidth
to cope with the public interest.
The programme was an immense sucess. It was repeated a total of four times on BBC and a
further three times on Sky. It receives regular repeats on BBC Knowledge and has been
the first reserve tape for the BBC - that is shown when any other program unexpectedly
has to be cancelled. However, the company had originally employed more than seventy
people. When 'The Kinky Boot Factory' was recorded there were only fifty five and at the end of
the first year they were down to twenty one. Though the programme was a success, it was
slow to translate into sales. Divine was going to save the company, but only just.
Unfortunately a deal with a US company collapsed with Divine owed over thirty thousand
pounds. After such hard work this was to signal the end of manufacturing at Divine. They
could no longer support the large factory and workforce and still focus on quality.
Happily, Steve managed to contact a small family firm of only four people who were
willing to train in making the shoes that Divine was now selling. They took on the
manufacturing and in a neat twist are now themselves growing to meet the demands for
quality fetish shoes. In the mean time Steve has produced the Divine catalogue and
recently launched a web site to sell shoes and fetish wear.
I asked Steve about the new catalogue:
So your catalogue signifies a change of direction? You're no
longer just selling your own shoes?
Yes, that was all our own shoes, plus the ones that we buy in from America. I've been
going out to America twice a year anyway to support our customers out there and build
extra business. There we came across the new platform shoes by accident and loved them,
I thought they were absolutely fantastic. I put two and two together and brought them
here. Of course now they've caught on and everybody in the high street is trying to get
them in. But we still have the edge - they're bringing them in as cheap imitations from
Portugal, Italy and Spain, but they'll only play safe. The companies we deal with are the
best - they sell to the lap dancers and cage dancers on the Californian coast and their
products have had to stand the test of time.
But it must be difficult to maintain the quality?
When I started this I said that I wanted to be so different from everyone else and to do that we've
had a lot of advantages. For instance, as I said on the programme a lot of fetish shoes are
made on ladies fittings which start at a size three and go up to an eleven or twelve - but
they're all just graded up or down from a ladies size eight so a bloke is having to take
two sizes up. What we did was keep the ladies sizes from three to six and then for a size
seven up to thirteen we had our own last, our own fitting made based on a man's brogue
but for a thigh length boot or court shoe. It's received loads of support not only from
the men, but also from women, because people's feet are getting wider and bigger.
We also have to look at the pricing structure and try to deliver value for money as
well. We price our shoes individually, and we've stayed away from the other shoe
companies. We didn't want to be accused of stealing other designs so we try to do
everything totally separate from them. At the same time though I had all of these
contacts, not only with the models but the other people I had talked to, I came in
not really as a threat to them. With this new catalogue, I've gone to people I like,
who I think are at the height of their niche in the fetish industry and asked them
to be in the Divine range. To have people like Love Bomb, David Spain, Velda Lauder and
Pigalle - all these are fantastic. Not only that but people like Leather Works and
Fantasy - I've got to know them over the years and now they're supplying me.
So I'm trying to create my own designs, but also bring in everybody else. Shoes are the most
difficult to sell. Women particularly will buy a dress and then often make do with a
pair of shoes they don't like. Or they'll see a pair of shoes and wonder what to put
with them. I thought if I've got the footwear and then get the clothing and accessories
to put with them, people can look at the catalogue and see that those shoes go well
with that dress, that outfit whatever. Then again, some people just deal with us only
for shoes and nothing else.
Not only that but we've actually built up a lot of our base from outside of the core
scene because they've seen us through the documentary or on Trisha or Esther Rantzen or
all these other programmes and have wanted a catalogue. We've always been more towards
club wear rather than erotica and we try to keep a clean image with what we sell. There
are no toys or videos - except for a video catalogue of our clothing so you can see the
back, the front and how the clothes moves. A lot of the typical photoshoots are great, but the
model has been taped into the clothes so they look better than they are. You can actually
see on the video what our clothes and shoes look like. I'm very pleased with that.
Certainly the catalogue is very well produced.
We wanted to be different with the Catalogue. We've kept it very clean. There are
no backgrounds, no gothic castles or sleazy nightclub scenes. We've kept white backgrounds
so people can see the product, or kept very simply textured backgrounds that are just part
of the styles and are very pale.
We've been concentrating on that but we had to move from the old factory
to these premises next door and that has taken up a lot of time so we're only just getting
the mail shots out. We've been relying on our existing customer base, but now we can
start pushing it to new people.
You've also re-shot the clothes from the other suppliers on your own models.
Yes, Jane is our Divine girl. She features largely in the catalogue. Originally we had
thought we wanted a blonde model, but I spoke to Jane and she was so good that we had to
have her. She joined us going to Dusseldorf and Erotica and has been a great friend. From that
I got to know Lana Cox through doing the video and Katie Anne Day who lives up the road
who we met at one of the shows. Vanessa we met at Erotica - she has done things for Loaded
and now stuff for us. We then plan out our own photoshoot and concentrate more on
the shoes than the model! It sounds awful, but we try to get the shoes right and find the
clothes that go well with them rather than picking the clothes and chucking a pair of
shoes on.
And now you're doing your own web site.
Yes, that's coming along. We've had to re-shoot the pictures to get the right level of
detail, but it's coming along. Everything that we've done we've tried to learn from,
to try to move it on. I love the freedom and excitement of this - though I always miss
working in the factory, I've always enjoyed marketing and talking to people. I really
enjoy doing things like the interviews, and now I even do after dinner speaking. Last
week I did my second lecture at Leicester University to mature business students! The
tutors want to show people how businesses are run and though we haven't always done
the right thing, we can at least explain why we've taken this approach.
That must be fun. How do the students react?
Well I always ask this question. After I've told them what I do I ask them 'Does
anyone think I'm a pervert?'. Usually a couple of hands creep up, but I ask them to
consider that we've just had Christmas. We went to see a pantomime where there were
two blokes dressed up as women, a woman dressed up as a man wearing thigh length boots
and slapping their thighs - and that's children's entertainment! That's been going on
for years. You go back to the cavalier times and they were wearing frilly cuffs and
long boots with high heels.
In actual fact we were aiming the shoes mainly at women - between seventy and eighty
percent. But we also knew that men buy them and needed to show them in the catalogue.
The documentary saw that and played that up quite a lot.
People ask why I modelled the shoes for the catalogue and it's quite simple. I wasn't
going to drag someone off the shop floor, and I have roughly average sized legs.
We had to show the shoes on a male foot, to show that they really do work - so really
it had to be me and I have no problem with that. Then if I was going to model them, I
couldn't have hairy legs, so I had to shave them. It's just not a big deal.
To be honest, since we've done this I've been to the clubs - I've been to swingers
clubs, gay clubs, fetish clubs, I've been everywhere now and I've never had so much
fun. One club is actually local, in Northampton. I was introduced to it by two people
who are good friends now, a husband and wife and I was invited there to do a personal
appearance just after the program. It's a swingers club and I was petrified - I thought
that if the papers got hold of it there would be headlines: 'Steve Pateman Goes To
Swingers Clubs'. I was really worried, scared stiff, but I went in all dressed up in
the boots and everything and there were couples and a few single blokes. All sorts
of things were going on but everyone was really nice, and they all came up and said
they thought the program was really nice and could they come to the shop and see us and
buy some things. They wanted to support us - they thought that what we had done was
fantastic for them. We have had so many supportive comments.
We did it for our own reasons of course, but now we've found all these people it's
like finding a good cause. You ask yourself why are these guys getting bad press or why
aren't they getting the right support. I don't know if I've just happened to be in
the right place at the right time, or just happened to have the right profile or
image but if I can help to forward the cause then I will do it. When I'm doing a
talk there are always rowdy ones, but you just have to say 'come on, try them on'
and they're straight up there. They go really quiet and try the thigh boots on.
It fascinates me, but we never get any bad responses.
No bad responses at all?
No - the worst we had was through email, and that was a misunderstanding.
Someone had found another company online that sells our products and had thought that
because the prices were higher we were ripping people on the internet off. He thought that
it was our web site. Once we explained he was very apologetic.
Another little story was when I was in a squash club where I often play with a friend.
There were two big blokes standing there with tattoos and as we walked by they gave us
that look that you learn to recognise when they recognise you. It was just after the
programme. We went to the other end of the bar for drinks and I told my friend that
if anything happened he should just get out of there. One of them started pointing at us
and then he stood on the metal bar at the foot of the bar and shouted 'Oi, you!'.
I was terrified - I said 'what me?' and he replied, 'Yeah, you're that f**king
kinky boot guy aren't you'. I admitted, yes I was. He just shouted across the bar 'I admire
your balls mate, well done!'. That's always been the way - people recognise that I've done
what I can for my employees and for my family company. The programme showed us as
being really straightforward which was great.
Originally I had thought to call it Divine Fetish, but I didn't want to give it
a scary image. If you say 'Fetish' people are a bit nervous, but if you say 'Erotic'
or 'Fantasy' and they're interested - and that's all it is really, it makes it all
fun. I must admit we were a bit worried, we didn't know how people would take to us.
But we're accepted wherever we go. The first Erotica show was when we turned up having
had no contact with anybody and they came to us. This was before they had seen the
program and they wanted to get to know about us and find out about us.
You must be so pleased with the results of the documentary?
You couldn't have wanted a better story. In fact we've sold the story to a film company,
and we it might be made into a film. If it happens, it happens - that would be fantastic,
but things are always happening, which is nice. There are always more things on the
horizon. When the documentary was made, they told me the effect might last three months
and it might be repeated once. They said that after the summer it would be back to normal
again. But it just keeps popping up - we talk to tv shows, radio programmes. It's
fantastic.
We did Esther a while back and we had given one of the researchers a copy of the
catalogue so they could see what it was like. Esther walks in to the show through a
sort of tunnel, so the audience can't see her until she steps out. I was sitting there
thinking 'Oh gosh, she does children's charities, things like that, what will she
think of me?' As she came out, it was the first time that she had seen us and she had
the catalogue in her hand and gave us a big thumbs up. She just said 'I admire what
you did'. It's amazing how it crosses barriers.
How do your customers break down now? You were saying that you
were initially aiming more at women, but the BBC played up the crossdressing angle?
After the first Erotica show the majority of our customers were
women. Then as the programme went out, and we got more involved with
the crossdressing scene because the programme put out that image. I
would say it has evened out a lot more. We get a lot more men buying
now - we do a lot of styles that will suit men.
Hopefully the guys who have bought from
us are saying 'These are good quality, I got them quickly and I'll get some more'.
We'd like to do more - but it's very difficult. Some
of the other catalogues show men dressed up wearing the clothes, but they look so
much men, which doesn't look very nice. The way I'd like to do is that when I do do
it, it should look as good as possible. I can see that a crossdresser doesn't want
to look like a bloke in bad drag, he wants to look like a model.
So perhaps at a later point, but at the moment we're concentrating on this catalogue
and on the web site. It takes a huge investment to do these things, time and money,
and we want to do this well.
You can visit the Divine website here
Alternatively you can contact them at:
44 Kings Street, Earls Barton, Northants NN6 0LQ
Tel: 01604 812440
Many thanks to Steve for spending the time to allow me to interview him. I thoroughly enjoyed
the chat we had, and yes, I can recommend his shoes. Tell him I sent you.
Please note that the comment about copyright at the head of this text is serious. My site is only worth
the effort I put into it if visitors can see something unique here. I am not a journalist or web
professional, so putting together an article like this takes a lot of hours work. Stealing someone
else's efforts is not only dishonest, it will very likely cause people like me to stop producing
web sites. If this text is reproduced without my permission, I will take action.
