Report from the London Super Trunk Show 2018

Last weekend the second edition of the world’s largest open event for classic men’s shoe took place – the London Super Trunk Show 2018. An amazing day with more than 800 people from all over the world who came to have a closer look at all exhibitors and the World Championships in both shoe shining and shoemaking. Here’s a summary in text and about hundred pictures.

The event, hosted by Shoegazing and The Shoe Snob, took place in the same venue as last year, an event space in the middle of Mayfair. After last year’s very successful premiere we hoped for something similar this year, and we are very happy that our wishes were met. The amount of visitors were even a bit higher this year, with even more people from the shoe industry in both England and abroad coming to visit and meet at the event, and we received a lot of praise from you visitors. The World Champs in shoe shining is a real crowd pleaser, and this year’s exhibition of all shoes in the first World Championships in Shoemaking and its award ceremony was a very welcomed addition, people really loved it. The exhibitors sold shoes and also shoe care products and accessories for around €40,000 / £36,000, still good but a bit less than last year, which was perhaps the only small set-back. Though the possibility to allow such a high number of visitors, and also people who followed things online and in social media, see and get to know the brands and products better was worth a lot for the exhibitors as well.

More than 800 persons, several who had travelled far, joined the event in London last Saturday.

Visitors inspecting exhibitor’s tables.

Rows of J. FitzPatrick shoes.

On display were shoes of various types in various price ranges from various places. We had Italian Barbanera, Mario Bemer and Paolo Scafora, Clematis Ginza and Jsep, Japan Shoes Export Platform (Matsumoto, Miyagi Kogyo, Kanpekina and Kiten) from Japan, Norman Vilalta and TLB/Skolyx making shoes in Spain, where also J. FitzPatrick Footwear’s shoes are made, and the Swedish brand Myrqvist. Unfortunately The Sabot couldn’t make it to the event. Main partner of the super trunk and also exhibiting were the shoe care brand Saphir, plus partners Exquisite Trimmings (accessories) and Mes Chaussettes Rouges (socks). First half of the day were fully dedicated to the exhibitors and their products.

Paolo Scafora beauties. Painted wholecuts.

Kanpekina museum calf brogues.

Boots by Barbanera.

Clematis Ginza oxford in two leather types.

Shoe care from Saphir.

Then in the afternoon the two stage happenings took place. First up were the final of the World Championships in Shoe Shining, in collaboration with Saphir. Three contestants had 20 minutes to polish up a Loake Aldwych in Mahogany as beautiful as possible. In the final we had Thomas Brunschwig from France, Singaporean John Chung, and Pete Bultitude from England (who took the place of Gabriel Costa Perez, who couldn’t travel to London. Pete were one of three who had the highest amount of votes in the qualification round after the top trio, and the only one of those who could make it to the final).
As last year a huge crowd followed the final, and when the 20 minutes were over the jury had three really nicely shined and good looking shoes to review. In the jury were Sergio Barangé, of the Directors of Avel who owns Saphir, Filip Hallerfelt of Loake, Jesper Ingevaldsson of Shoegazing and Justin FitzPatrick of The Shoe Snob.

Thomas Brunschwig (to the left) and Pete Bultitude, two of the finalists.

The three finished shoes, from left shined by Thomas, Pete and John.

World Champion John Chung (to the right) together with Sergio Barangé from Saphir.

More exhibition shoes, here by TLB.

Norman Vilalta loafers.

Black single monk made by Myrqvist.

New for this year was the World Championships in Shoemaking. Of the registered contestants we had 30 shoes sent in for the competition, all were supposed to make a plain cap toe oxford model with natural coloured sole, hand welted with handmade sole stitch, single leather sole. These were all on display during the event, and there were a wide variety of styles and make which gathered a lot of attention, and several really superbly made shoes. The day before the shoes were reviewed anonymously by the jury, consisting of bespoke shoemakers Jim McCormack, Nicholas Templeman, Keitaro Takano and Eric Devos, John Lobb Paris bespoke Director Patrick Verdillon, and partners and shoe experts Gary Tok of Master Shoemakers and Kirby Allison of the Hanger Project, plus again Jesper of Shoegazing and Justin of The Shoe Snob.

All competition shoes in the World Championships in Shoemaking.

Championship shoes inspected and admired.

Second placed Daniel Wegan (to the left) and winner Patrick Frei, with their shoes and awards.

Crowd just after the award ceremony. The super trunk attracted an even larger group from the shoe industry this year, with even more people who travelled in as well, and has really become an important meeting place. There were also several gatherings the days before and in the evening after the event, and the shoe stores in London on for example Jermyn Street also notice an increased amount of customers during the super trunk weekend. We are very happy for this.

Joyful conversations.

Mes Chaussettes Rouges’ table, obviously.

Bags and braces at Exquisite Trimmings.

At the award ceremony the top ten were presented, with the podium eventually ending up as Philippe Atienza, France, on 3rd (receiving £1,000 prize sum), Daniel Wegan, Sweden/England, on 2nd (£2,000 in prize), and Patrick Frei, Germany, as first world champion (£3,000 in prize). Amazing masterpieces made by them, and these three shoes will now travel around the world to be showcased for more shoe lovers. See more of these in this post, and in a week or so there will be a massive summary of all the competition shoes in text and picture. You can view film from this event session and the shoe shining session in the bottom of this post.
The overall reception of the shoemaking championships has been overwhelming, and we definitely will have it again next year. Plan is also to introduce the World Championships in Shoe Patina next year, so we have a trio of shoe competitions.

Thanks again to all participants and all visitors for making the London Super Trunk Show another great day for shoe nerds! Please give feedback of what you liked and what you wish could be better, and hopefully we will see you again next year!

Matsumoto goodies.

Kirby Allison’s Hanger Project were filming lots of things for their YouTube channel, in a few weeks time films from the event will start being published.

Shoe champ shoes, with the Master Shoemakers book in the lower left corners, which were sold by author Gary Tok at the event.

Barbanera loafers, great pattern.

Sole of the above.

Adelaide in black.

Lizard grained boot.

Staff from Saphir showed some shoe shining techniques.

Paolo Scafora’s well filled table.

Various monk versions.

Scafora’s very Italian sole finishing.

Lazyman, note that it’s three tone coloured, and a split toe derby.

Tassel loafers by Swedish brands Myrqvist, whose shoes are Goodyear welted in Portugal.

Sole of Myrqvist shoe.

Penny loafer.

Oxfords lined up.

Filip Hallerfelt of Loake and Justin FitzPatrick seem to discuss important things.

Saphir’s table.

From their basic range.

Keitaro Takano of Clematis Ginza measuring one of several persons who ordered bespoke during the day.

Clematis bespoke samples.

Close-up.

Sole of the lazyman.

Clematis RTW made by Joe Works.

Lots of goodies by J. FitzPatrick.

Boots for winter, loafers for summer.

Sizes written out on fitting shoes by Miyagi Kogyo, part of Jsep, Japan Shoes Export Platform. Very happy to be able to show several Japanese RTW brands for a larger crowd in Europe for the first time, and several people bought/ordered from these brands. The lasts they have focused on for Europe, ahead of the new free trade agreement, worked very well for our feet, tried out several of them myself with good results.