Bench-made

—a term used to describe “bespoken”, as the English call it, or custom handmade shoes. Before the advent of machinery, when shoes were all made by hand, the workmen sat along on benches and each workman made a complete shoe, performing all the operations. They were, therefore, called b-m. and the term today is used to designate handmade or custom-made shoes as compared with factory or all-machine-made shoes.