From time to time I see big misconceptions on the waterproofing preferences of welted shoes, like how stitched rubber soles lead to water coming into the shoe or how closed channel leather soles are much more waterproof than open channel soles, and similar. This is wrong – here I explain why.
The Japanese bespoke shoemaker Masaru Okuyama has moved from Hong Kong to England and London, where he is now setting up a workshop and preparing for a new chapter in his shoemaking life.
One of the most praised Indonesian bootmakers – Midas Bootmaker – has collaborated with the Swedish store Skolyx on the first RTW collection ever for the brand. Hand lasted, hand welted, handmade sole stitch (even for rubber soles), hand built heels, with real leather toe and heel stiffeners – serious craftsmanship now easily accessible widely.
According to information given by a US sales representative of the famous tannery J. Rendenbach – most known for its oak bark tanned leather soles – the German company is to close the tannery. More info will follow later on, but here is a summary of what is known.
I’ve been fortunate enough to own a number of shoes from several Japanese bespoke shoemakers, and what continuously amaze me with these shoes are the exemplary execution of the making. Look at this shoe above by Yohei Fukuda as an example, see the flawless closing of the uppers, the perfectly trimmed and stacked heel, the immaculate blind welted waist, the precise sole stitching and welt finishing, and so on. One can make shoes differently than this – but one can’t basically make it better.
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In this episode we are meeting a proper shoe collector, André Simha, who owns more than 300 pairs of welted shoes from literally all over the world. 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.
The “online tailoring” brand Luxire has become a big player in classic menswear, offering highly affordable made to measure clothing. Now they have introduced a range of Goodyear welted shoes, offered from only €110 including free worldwide shipping.
Between October 1-5 TLB Mallorca runs their first ever Made to Order event, where they remove the normal upcharge for a personalised model, so prices are the same as for regular RTW models.
Covid has hit the business of quality shoes hard, where most have struggled and a few companies has fallen. Now reports from many different areas of the segment states that things are looking a whole lot better now, for many things are back to where things were before Covid, and hopefully the shoe business can soon leave all this behind.
When Alfred Sargent went into liquidation last winter, fourth generation of the founding family, Paul Sargent, quickly announced that he was leading a project to restart it all under a new name. Now Paul Sargent Shoes has officially launched.
