Buying tip – Mogada RTW

The next European bespoke shoemaker to launch a RTW collection is Mogada from Germany, the brand of Gaziano & Girling alumni Louis Lampertsdörfer. Premium hand welted very sleek classics that are just perfect on the eye.

I’ve praised the development of more and more bespoke makers coming out with RTW and MTO shoes. Not least the fact that many of these are made to a very high standard as well, even if not always up to the bespoke level they often have many other parts that one don’t find in regular RTW. The same goes for Mogada’s new RTW range.

The man behind Mogada is Louis Lampertsdörfer, based in the German city of Munich. Louis among other things was an apprentice and later worked at the bespoke department of Gaziano & Girling in England. During this time he also finished sixth in the World Championships of Shoemaking 2019, with a very classy version of a full brogue. Interestingly enough, that model has now been the foundation for one of the RTW models he now offers. The Cortinth full brogue model comes in two brown shades, Mahogany and Cedar, and apart from these the initial RTW range consists of a gorgeous black plain cap toe oxford and a black chelsea boot, all made on a sleek round toe last.

All four models part of the RTW range, which are made to very high standard.

Louis started getting questions on possibilities of remote orders on standard lasts from folks in the US and Asia, and began to look into creating a RTW range. He investigated various options thoroughly, and ended up working with a manufacturer in Northern Italy. Louis source the leathers, for the four current models all from Annonay, he then sends this to Italy where they make the uppers, hand last and hand welt the shoes, built them with proper long leather heel stiffeners etc. To keep price down the toe stiffeners are celastic and soles stitched with machine, which makes perfect sense.

Clean soles made of oak bark tanned leather.

The shoes are only rough finished in Italy, all edge trimming, hand setting and finishing is done by Louis Lampertsdörfer in his workshop, as well as the polishing etc of the shoes. The really closely trimmed heels and waists, the small notch between the waist edge and heel and other parts done here makes them feel closer to fully handmade bespoke shoes than normal premium RTW. Price for the shoes are €1,100, the boots €1,350, including VAT. Given the small resources Louis has, there’s very limited stock available, but he will fill up things regularly and if one are after a certain size one can contact him to make sure it’s included in the next restock. Going forward, he plan to introduce new leathers and new models, but still on a small scale. Also MTO and MTM is on the development list. But quality is more important than quantity here.

Very closely trimmed heels.

The last is very well-balanced.

Fine details.

The full brogue model comes in two different leathers.

Black wholecut chelsea.

Even if the sole stitching is done by machine, the welt finishing looks super. Pictures: Mogada