SHOP
From left to right: Designed For Joy co-founders Kristen Sydow and Cary Heise
Ealdwine owners Matt Gray, left, and Jim Pietryka, center, fit writer Billy Warden in a shirt and blazer.
DAPPER DESIGN Ealdwine brings sophisticated style to McDowell Street by BILLY WARDEN
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photography by SMITH HARDY
att Gray’s soul is deeply invested in your soles. “When I put someone in a pair of these,” he proclaims, “I get cold chills. My hairs stand on end.” Gray gestures reverently to an array of shoes displayed on a handsome hardwood table. But to call them shoes is, as Gray tells it, like referring to a Bentley as a mere set of wheels. These are Aldens, a men’s brand that dates back more than a century. Evidently they cast a powerful spell: Rumor is that Harrison Ford was so bewitched with the brand that he insisted on wearing Alden boots—sometimes his own personal pair— throughout his globetrotting adventures as Indiana Jones. 46 | WALTER
Gray owns 50 pairs. Yes, 5-0, dwarfing the combined fancy footwear collection of my wife and me—and these are shoes that cost between $400 to $500 a pair. He is also the owner of Ealdwine Gentlemen’s Shop, which opened on McDowell Street in the spring and hopes to hook the capital city’s stylish set on the joys of not only Alden, but of tapping into a headto-toe collection of made-in-North America men’s clothes and accessories. The shop, named for the phrase “old friend” in Old English, arrives as high-end menswear is surging, with forecasts indicating luxury lines for guys will grow faster than women's over the next several years. In the meantime, Raleigh is just
