In this episode of the Shoegazing Podcast the legendary French bespoke shoemaker Christophe Corthay talks about shoes and art. Hear him talk about when he left Maison Corthay, about how he thinks that the bespoke shoe world in general makes boring shoes, and how one of his targets with the new brand Tranchet Vif is to make shoes that people don’t want to wear.
Christophe Corthay.
Christophe Corthay has spent more than three decades making shoes, previously with his brother Pierre at Maison Corthay, but nowadays he runs Atelier du Tranchet with the brand Tranchet Vif together with Christophe “Toulouz” Algans and Phillippe de Paillette. Those who’ve seen their shoes know that most of them are truly artistic creations, that looks like nothing you see from other brands. So I decided to talk to Christophe Corthay about the sometimes slightly controversial topic: shoes and art.
Listen to the episode below, or in your preferred podcast player.
Artistic creations.
Brilliant interview, interesting and entertaining.
John J: Thanks a lot!
I enjoyed the chat very much. To the idea of making an “art” shoe that no one ever wears, why not make 3 shoes (Right, Left, and “extra’) where two will be worn (we will lose somethings), but the third is meant to be displayed. This has the benefit that we can have the display one out and examinable and we can keep the worn shoes in their proper bags, etc…for storage. It would be a little bit like watch display boxes. I love my watch display box because I can look at all my watches and decide which to wear. If I had a shoe display, I could do the same to decide what to wear, and then go into my close to pull out the winners.