A Frenchman living in England, a Singaporean based in Japan, and a Brazilian who lives in Switzerland – these are the three finalists in the World Championships in Shoe Shining 2018. They will battle it out at the London Super Trunk Show on April 7, where they will have 20 minutes to polish up a shoe as nice as possible.

 

The championship takes place during the London Super Trunk Show (read all about the event here), hosted on Saturday April 7 at The Music Room, 26 South Molton Lane, in the middle of Mayfair. We gather 10 very interesting shoe exhibitors: Barbanera, Clematis Ginza, J. FitzPatrick Footwear, Jsep, Japan Shoes Export Platform (Matsumoto, Miyagi Kogyo, Kanpekina and Kiten), Mario Bemer, Myrqvist, Norman Vilalta, Paolo Scafora, The Sabot (Meccariello, Yohei Fukuda, Andrés Sendra and Joe Works) and Skolyx (with new Spanish brand TLB). Main partner of the event is the shoe care brand Saphir, partner Mes Chaussettes Rouges. The event is open for everyone between 11.00-19.00, and there’s also places left for the VIP opening for 150 pre-registered already at 10.00 (e-mail supertrunkvip@gmail.com to reserve a spot for you and your friends). Also part of the event is the award ceremony for the World Championships in Shoemaking plus all 43 competition shoes will be displayed.

The World Championships in Shoe Shining, in collaboration with Saphir, is held for the second time this year To qualify one should send in a picture of a well polished shoe (you can read more about the qualification here). We had 27 submissions sent in, from Japan, USA, Singapore, Russia, Canada, China and several European countries. There was once again many really good shine jobs sent in, and hard work for the jury. In the end, these three made it to the final:

Thomas Brunschwig, France/England. Colleague to last year’s finalist Pete Bultitude, the finishing department at Gaziano & Girling has another chance for the win. Thomas has among other things previously worked for Corthay, and is known for his great patina skills. Here he has done a lovely shine focused on the toe area on this pair of brown single monks.

John Chung, Singapore/Japan. This bespoke pair by Yohei Fukuda has been given a very beautiful shine over the whole shoe, with a nice depth to the colour. John Chung is the founder of the famous shoe shine bar Mason & Smith in Singapore, but now lives in Tokyo, Japan, where he is learning shoemaking.

Gabriel Costa Peres, Brazil/Switzerland. Without a doubt there’s an impressive mirror shine achieved on this pair of old John Lobb Paris shoes. Gabriel works for the shoe store Brogues Shoes in Geneva, where apart from serving customers is their shoe shining specialist, and is known for his Instagram account L’Art Du Glacage.

Hopefully many of you can come to London for the Super Trunk Show, and see the big final! You find the Facebook event for the day here.