Claim OwnershipShoegazing Podcast
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In this podcast series Jesper Ingevaldsson of Shoegazing, one of the world's largest websites on classic men's shoes, does in-depth interviews with various shoe people from all over the world, where each episode will focus on a specific topic related to the interviewee. For much more on classic quality shoes, visit Shoegazing.com.
34 Episodes
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In this episode we are putting the spotlight on an integral part of the shoe industry, that aren't that known to the wider audience since it doesn't deal with the regular consumer: the leather wholesalers. One of the leading such for the shoe industry in the UK is Euroleathers, where Rob James is a Director. Earlier this spring I visited him and the family business in Northamptonshire, had a tour of the warehouse, and sat down with Rob to talk about the company, about wholesalers part in the shoemaking sector, about leather quality, about what types of leathers that are quickly on the rise, and much more.
With this episode we are back in Japan again, back in Tokyo, where I met Takashi Horiguchi, or "Gucci" as he mostly is called, who run the acclaimed vintage classic men's shoe store Super 8 Shoes. A store that focus on American and British shoes from the 1950's to 1980's, known for the overall very good condition of the selection they offer, and quite a large amount of New Old Stock, old shoes that are unworn. The store also has a repair workshop.
During the 15+ years that Gucci has worked with vintage shoes, he's been extremely dedicated in acquiring knowledge about old shoes, which he now pass on to his customers, both in his physical store and online. Much of the stock in the store comes from numerous trips to mainly the US, where he's been hunting for good vintage shoes himself.
We talk about his journey with Super 8 Shoes, about how vintage footwear differ from the shoes made today, how the interest in vintage men's shoes has developed, and much more.
It's time for another edition of the appreciated Question and answers specials, with Daniel Wegan of Catella Shoemaker. Daniel made a name of himself when he for several years ran the bespoke department at the English company Gaziano & Girling, now since some years he has his own bespoke shoe brand Catella. He also won the shoemaking world championships in 2019.
In this episode some of the topics covered are how the bespoke shoe world has changed since he started some 15 years ago, we talk about why he has stopped posting on Instagram, we go into how sneakers are influencing the world of classic shoes, and much more.
For this episode I met up with Jim McCormack, a legendary bespoke shoemaker in England, who has spent over five decades in the trade. For more or less all of these years, he has worked as an outworker, doing bottom making for many different firms. England is the country in the world where the outworker system is the most extended. We talk a lot about the freelance system, how it works, the pros and cons and so on.
But before that we cover Jim McCormack's own journey into the shoemaking world, hear stories from for exampleJohn Lobb back in the 70's, go through the different stages of the bespoke shoemaking scene in the UK the past 50 years, and much more.
For episode 30 I sat down with Ben Robinson of Stitchdown. As you likely know, Shoegazing's focus on the site, podcast, events etc is on classic dress shoes, well Stitchdown is sort of the equivalent within the world of workwear boots, or heritage boots, or whatever you want to call it. In short, Ben knows a whole lot about boots and rugged footwear.
So, apart from learning how Ben ended up in the shoe world and the journey with Stitchdown, we talked about the incredible boom that workwear boots has seen in recent years, the reason behind it and where it's going, we talked about why good quality footwear of all kinds will and need to continue to be popular, and much more.
For this episode, number 29, I visited the well-renowned shoe store Leffot in New York and talked to the founder and owner Steven Taffel. When the world entered the digital era, Leffot was one of the first influential multi-brand stores specialising in classic, mainly welted, men's shoes, and it has had a big impact both on its customer base and on other stores around the world that have been inspired by it.
With Steven's long background in the business we went deep on the classic shoe industry in the US and how it has evolved and look to evolve going forward, but we also of course talked about his own journey.
In this episode, aim is to connect historic shoemaking with the present, and we do this together with William Efe Laborde. An independent bespoke shoemaker based in London, who has a huge interest in old shoes, tools and leathers which he both brings in to his own shoemaking, and as a side business he also refurbish and sell old vintage tools.
Given that classic shoes in general use old traditional construction methods, of course a lot is similar in how shoes are made now compared to 100 years ago or so. But also a lot has changed. We talk about what was better back then than now, and also the other way around. Learn which area of shoemaking that William Efe Laborde thinks is at an all time high now in present time, why the best tools were made before World War II, and much more.
This is the second Q&A Special with Daniel Wegan, the first one was really popular, so we thought we'd do another round. For those who don't know, Daniel Wegan is a Swede who since many years live in the UK in Kettering, Northampton. He used to work for the bespoke department of Gaziano & Girling, but a few years ago he left to start his own brand Catella. Worth mentioning as well is that he won the World Championships of Shoemaking in 2019.
We go through a bunch of topics in this episode, for example we talk about the differences between working at a bigger firm and running his own brand, about the challenges to find good leather, about the use of modern technology in shoemaking, what bespoke shoemakers need to do to continue to be relevant, and much more.
In this episode we will go all in on the nitty gritty of shoe care. We do this together with Anders Sundström, who has developed the new premium shoe care range Paul Brunngård, for the Swedish company with the same name. Paul Brunngård is the largest shoe care company in Scandinavia, but previously focus has been on more basic shoe care products and eco-friendly stuff. Now they wanted to develop their own range of premium products, a task given to the shoe care expert Anders Sundström.
We will talk a bit about Anders background and his work with developing the nicely designed Paul Brunngård shoe care range, and then go into the details of what shoe care products contains, how the various ingredients affect leather, the good and the bad, and so on. If you like when the podcast nerd in on things, this episode is for you.
In this episode you'll get to meet Seiji McCarthy, a shoemaker with an American father and a Japanese mother, who grew up in Philadelphia on the US East coast but now since seven years lives in Tokyo, Japan. Here he is merging the Japanese highly skilled craftsmanship with traditional American style footwear.
This was not always the case though, up until a few years ago he did more dressy, British-Japanese style shoes, but Seiji felt that it wasn't fully him and what he really wanted to do, so he decided to revamp the brand. We'll talk a lot about this process, and about how his American heritage started to blossom first when he lived in Japan with the passion you can find here for this, about how he really wish to be a part of the Japanese preservation of American style, and much more.
It's time for the second special edition Q&A episode, where you listeners and readers of Shoegazing.com gets to ask questions to some big names from the quality shoe industry.
This round it's the most famous of all Japanese bespoke shoemakers that is answering your questions, Yohei Fukuda. Since about 14 years his bespoke shoes and nowadays also top class RTW and MTO offerings has been a holy grail for many shoe lovers around the world.
Hear him give his best advice to aspiring shoemakers, talk about how the demand for bespoke shoes is in Japan, answer questions on how much time that is spent on making his shoes, reveal the secrets behind his amazing photos, and much more.
Affan Mohammed is the Managing Director of Bridlen Shoes, an Indian maker of Goodyear welted footwear that is getting more and more attention both domestically and internationally. Founded by Affan's father Hasan who had worked his whole life with leather craft and shoemaking, and Mr. Watanabe from Japan, who among other things was involved in the start of Meermin.
To make high quality Goodyear welted shoes like Bridlen in India, a country with lower wages which mainly has a reputation of doing cheaper shoes, comes with its own set of challenges. We talked a lot around this topic, about how India is going through a big transformation in many regards, about Bridlen's special construction techniques like stitching the Goodyear seam directly to the leather insole and what they call 3D upper making, and much more.
This episode, number 22, will be featuring no other than Jean-Michel Casalonga. He is the main lastmaker and workshop manager of Berluti's Paris workshop. The French company Berluti is one of the bigger quality shoe brands in the world, nowadays more of a full fashion menswear brand , owned by the luxury conglomerate LVMH, with stores all around the world. Berluti has two workshops making their bespoke shoes, one in Paris above their original Rue Marbeuf store just next to the Champs Élysées, led by Jean-Michel, and one outside Angers in Western France, led by Anthony Delos.
Hear Jean-Michel Casalonga tell the interesting story of how he in a relatively unorthodox way managed to get his place at Berluti, hear about his love of lastmaking and how he wants to raise its status in France, about how it is to run a large bespoke workshop doing all in-house and the pros and cons of this set-up compared to the use of freelancers, and much, much more.
In this episode we put the spotlight on the thriving boot and shoemaking scene in Indonesia, we do this together with Emil Rahmana Putra. He is the founder of the two brands Winson and Midas Bootmaker, where the first now is making the finest fully handmade dress shoes in the country, a true premium product of absolute top quality, while Midas focus on more affordable still excellent handmade Ready to Wear and Made to Order workwear boots. The company I work for, Skolyx, has been collaborating with Emil on a range of Ready to Wear Midas boots, and in recent years there are many around the world who have discovered the huge scene of especially workwear boot brands that comes out of Indonesia. The tradition of making boots by hand goes back to when the country was a Dutch colony, and today traditional shoe and bootmaking as well as other types of leather craftsmanship are relatively large industries for Indonesia.
As you will hear, Emil Rahmana Putra is one of these obsessive souls that we have in the shoemaking world, we talked about how he ended up in the shoe industry and managed to build two successful brands, about how he to a large extent actually is a self-trained shoemaker, about his view on the success and challenges for the Indonesian boot and shoemaking scene, and much more.
In this episode you'll get to meet the very charismatic bespoke shoemaker Patrick Frei from Germany. He made a name of himself more widely when he won the World Championships in Shoemaking in 2018, and is seen by many as one of the greatest shoemakers around today. He works out of his workshop in Freiburg in Southwest of Germany, together with his shoemaking partner Kazuya Kimura. For those of you who have seen shoes made by the Patrick Frei workshop, you'll know they have a distinct personal character, an originality and identity one can't find anywhere else. How one achieves this is one of the main topics of our conversation, but we also we talk about his rather special way into shoemaking sort of through juggling on the streets of South America, about his interesting approach on lastmaking, about the balance between tradition and playfulness, about his obsession with small details, and much more.
For this episode I once again was able to sit down with the interviewee in person. A couple of weeks ago I travelled to Germany and France, and one of the stops was Tanneries Haas, one of the leading calf leather tanneries in Europe. Here I met Jacques Kress, Export manager and responsible for all the Tanneries Haas' clients from the shoe industry, who has a background as European agent for Allen Edmonds.
In this conversation with Jacques we'll get to know the background of the famous tannery, we go through the process of chrome tanning and the rather special way they work with their customers, we talk about how the luxury goods market have taken over from the shoe industry as the main customer for quality calf, discuss the environmental impact of chrome tanning, and much more.
In this episode we are meeting a proper shoe collector - André Simha, from Geneva, Switzerland. Known to many as andrel42 on Instagram, where he shows off his seriously impressive shoe collection, with around 300 pairs of welted shoes from literally all over the world. For over four decades he's had a big interest in classic shoes, and owns everything from the most famous brands down to very obscure new makers very few have heard of. We talk about what it is that drives him to continue to buy new shoes, discuss practical things like storage and shoe care, gets his experience of various shoemaking countries and brands, and much more.
This time we're going to go in-depth on the experience of ordering bespoke shoes, this from a bespoke shoemakers viewpoint. Nicholas Templeman is an independent bespoke maker based in London, England, who left his job at the legendary workshop of John Lobb to set up his own brand. He has a reputation of being very service-minded, going that extra length to make both the process and the final products something special for the clients. We talked a lot on the customer experience topic, but also about for example his journey into shoemaking, about pros and cons with traditional British ways of doing bespoke fittings, about Covid and what a mess it has made of the bespoke footwear and clothing worlds in many regards, and much more.
In this episode I talk with Rezső Kuti of the Hungarian brand Vass Shoes, certainly the most famous shoe brand of the country, who've been making hand welted fully handmade shoes since the 1970's. Rezső worked as Sales Manager for the company for about a decade and built up its internationally successful MTO programme, he then spent a couple of years as Factory Manager for Heinrich Dinkelacker's Budapest factory and started the brand Passus Shoes, before re-joining Vass as Sales Consultant about 1,5 years ago.
We of course talk a lot about Vass, about the reasons for the brand's fame around the world, about the massive challenges that the covid situation has put them in and how they've run a lot of sales simply to not have to lay off their shoemakers and staff, etc, but also about the Hungarian quality shoe business in general, with a long heritage and a characteristic style as a base, where most still do everything all by hand.
In this episode we meet Leon Fan, who together with Kevin Li founded the famous shoe store Medallion Shoes, now with two huge brick and mortar stores in Beijing and Shanghai in China. They have sort of become the Chinese equivalent to the Isetan Men's shoe department in Tokyo, Japan, in the way it's not only setting a big mark on the huge domestic market, but also internationally. This also goes for the brand of fully handmade Ready to Wear, Made to Order and bespoke shoes Acme Shoemaker, where Leon Fan also is a co-founder.
We of course talked a lot about Medallion Shoes and how they have worked to become so successful, but also about things like the Chinese classic quality shoe market in general and about the increasingly interesting field of quality shoe brands and shoemakers coming out of China.
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