Last weekend the eight edition of the big shoe event in London took place, including having three exciting world championships contests in shoe shining, shoe patina and shoemaking playing out. Here’s a substantial report from the day with lots of photos from all the exhibitors, contests and stage happenings.
We’re not sure if it was the warm weather having people spend mid-day out in the parks, or if it was something else, but the event started off a bit slower than usual with visitors. Then in the afternoon things picked up and the last half the venue Showcase.co on 12 Regent Street in the middle of London was super busy, with total visitor numbers once again going up over 1,000. Us organising the event could summarise another great shoe day, me Jesper Ingevaldsson of Shoegazing, Justin FitzPatrick of The Shoe Snob blog, and Kirby Allison of the YouTube channel and webstore with the same name.
The entry from Regent Street, a stones throw below Piccadilly Circus.
Shoe and menswear interested from the UK and abroad gathered.
Loads of shoes shined during the day at Saphir’s free shoe shining service.
Riccardo Cianci of Carlino being filmed for Kirby Allison’s Youtube channel.
Even if we have a strong foundation with the event here in London, we always strive to develop things further to keep things exciting also for the many returning visitors. This year we introduced the same short stage sessions that we’ve had in the last U.S. and Singapore super trunks. Held every full hour (when there wasn’t a contest taking place) for a smaller group of people where questions are taken from the audience, for increased interaction and more learning. Unlike the contests these are not live streamed, but exclusive to the visitors of the event.
First we had an interesting talk about the state of bespoke shoemaking with the makers William Efe Laborde and Daniel Wegan, touching among other things on the increased possibilities independent makers have in today’s digital world. Then the first shine world champion Yuya Hasegawa of Brift-H teached the audience how one polish up an antique finishing. After that Affan Mohamed who is the factory manager of Bridlen talked about running a shoe factory, about their unique takes to get young people interested in working for them, and more. Last short session was hosted by Saphir, here Ewan Rix of Cheaney showcased how one best care for suede shoes and make them last long.
Bespoke shoemakers talking bespoke shoemaking. William Laborde and Daniel Wegan.
Yuya Hasegawa is used to shining shoes in front of a crowd and talking about how to do it.
Affan Mohamed of Bridlen was interviewed by Justin FitzPatrick on how one run a shoe factory.
Ewan Rix from Cheaney using Saphir products to care for suede shoes.
The heart of the super trunk show events are of course always the exhibitions. Our Platinum sponsors have the most space, where Saphir Medaille d’Or as always brought a large amount of their very wide range of premium shoe care products, who also are sold of large amounts during the day. Their free shoe shine service was upgraded this year, Marc of Bowbell Shoe Shine offered a basic shoe shine routine, and for visitors who wanted an extra high shine former world champion Yoshihiro Nishigami of Boston & Re Olds did this. Bridlen focused on their more casual offerings during the day, including unlined chukkas and loafers, boat shoe style derbies with soft nitrile rubber soles, and more. Their popularity continue to grow, which isn’t surprising given how solid quality shoes you get for a good price, nowadays also shipping worldwide DDP (delivery duty paid).
Saphir’s most loved product of all is likely the 1925 Crème Pommadier shoe cream, available in loads of colours, all with natural colour pigments.
Selection of different leather lotions.
Marc of Bowbell’s Shoe Shine and Yoshihiro Nishigami of Boston & Re Olds polishing visors shoes at no charge.
Unlined Goodyear welted chukkas from Bridlen.
Table set-up almost finalised.
Great boat shoe in oiled leather and nitrile rubber sole.
As Gold sponsors we had Calzoleria Carlino from Italy debuting at the super trunk with a bang. Making fully handmade MTO, MTM and bespoke (also remote) where they during the event and in June will offer exotic leathers for the same price as calf. On their table you could find alligator, crocodile, seal, hippo, elephant, stingray, pig and more. CNES from Vietnam has established themself as one of the most popular Asian brands internationally for quality men’s shoes, offering hand welted, Goodyear welted, Norwegian, Blake and other constructions. Excellent quality for the price and lots of nicely designed models of different styles.
If you’re interested in different types of leathers, vintage leathers, all types of quality leathers, Carlino is a brand for you.
Grey hippo.
A special ghilie derby by CNES.
Lots of different options on offer.
Then of course we had a great range of Silver sponsors. Here we this year expanded with some new type of exhibitors to widen the range of products of display, which gladly was much appreciated. Especially if we hopefully can expand things a bit more in size in the future, it’s great to have more than shoes, even if footwear of course will always be the majority and the solid base of it all. We had the umbrella company Francesco Maglia and socks manufacturer Bresciani, Scottish grooming brand Castle Forbes, and the UK leather wholesaler Euroleathers. Footwear brands as Silver exhibitors included both new and returning ones, we had Blk Brd from India, Indonesian Renav Goods Indonesia, and Twinkima.G and Yearn from China.
World class umbrellas of Francesco Maglia.
Fine colourful socks from Bresciani.
Castle Forbes grooming products and perfumes.
Euroleathers had a great display with loads of hanging full hides.
Fully handmade shoes by Blk Brd.
Same by Renav Goods, here’s a cool penny / tassel / fringe loafer.
An extra discrete lazyman oxford by Twinkima.G.
The table of Yearn Shoemaker, sleek splendid shoes.
Then of course, a big part of a London super trunk are the three world championships. First out was the patina contest, which kicked off right after opening and the whole day the contestants worked to transform a pair of Bridlen crust leather penny loafers with Saphir leather dyes, shoe creams and wax polishes. Finalists were Mandy Marie and Toan Junie from France, and Berk Kirman from Finland. The end results were very impressive for all three, as you can see on the photos below, but in the end the jury awarded Toan with the gold medal for his intricate patina showcasing many different techniques. He’s now the first one to win twice in any of the three contests. Mandy got silver and Berk bronze.
Work just started. Here Berk is dabbing dye on the back to build a foundation.
Toan, full time patina artist working a lot for Septieme Largeur, highly concentrated.
The medals.
Mandy doing the finishing touches after a hard day of work.
From the left, silver medalist Mandy Marie, winner Toan Junie, bronze medalist Berk Kirman.
Beautifully painted shoes.
In the afternoon we built up the larger stage area to house the shoe shining world championships. This prestigefull contest is the longest standing of the three world champs, here three finalists have 20 minutes to use Saphir Medaille d’Or wax polishes to shine a factory new Bridlen shoe to a magnificent glossy state. We had two returning finalists from Japan, Naoki Ueda and Atsuhiro Yoshidomi, who both really wanted the gold medal and had prepared massively, as had the third finalist, Benjamin Valeyre from France. In a tight final with three very well-shined shoes, Atsuhiro draw the longest straw with a deep distinct shine. He could celebrate with his colleague and former world champion Yoshihiro Nishigami from Boston & Re Olds. Naoki took second, Benjamin third.
Crowd’s ready for the battle.
The contestants from the left (after myself), Atsuhiro Yoshidomi, Benjamin Valeyre, Naoki Ueda.
World champion Atsuhiro, with Katia Moura of Saphir and Affan Mohamed of Bridlen.
The final shoes, in the same position as they stood on stage, so from the left: Atsuhiro’s, Benjamin’s, Naoki’s.
All entries in this year’s World Championships of Shoemaking was on display as usual. This year a black chelsea boot was the shoe to be made, with hand welted construction and a handmade sole stitch. The jury of of shoemakers and experts judged the 20 anonymous entries the day before the event, and during the final stage presentation the top ten shoes were revealed to the audience. Taking third place was Dmitry Avdyukhov from Russia, with the Chinese factory Twinkima.G impressively taking second. Then after finishing second twice, Japanese Ken Kataoka finally got his world champion title, with an impressive showpiece of a shoe.
The makers on the podium share a £6,000 prize fund sponsored by Kirby Allison, the book project Master Shoemakers and Parker Schenecker. In addition to prize money, they also receive handmade awls crafted by Phil Norsworthy as well as medals. The three highest ranked shoes, together with the winning pair from the patina contest, will later travel internationally as part of the annual world tour exhibition.
Contest entries on display.
Some spend a lot of efforts also on the shoe trees, even if they are not part of the judging. Here’s Andrey Kaveshnikov’s who had dried flowers embedded into the plastic tree.
People getting ready for the announcement of the top positions.
Top ten lined-up to have their exact positions revealed.
The incredible winning shoe by Ken Kataoka.
The super trunk and the whole weekend around it establish itself more and more as an important meeting place for the quality shoe industry. The super trunk event is of course the main thing, but around this we this year ourselves hosted a well-visited event in Carmina’s store on Friday evening, and a lot of other happenings took place, all from more separate stuff to various “after super trunk” drinks and things like that.
The next stop for the Super Trunk Show is Chicago together with Stitchdown Expo on November 6-7 (read more about that here), and then the second edition in Singapore in January or February (date will be announced soon). Further info on those will come later on. And the London event will be back in May 2027. Thanks to everyone who in one way or another were part of making this event such a great one!
At the bottom of this article you’ll find the live streams from the three championship finals. Much more will come on Kirby Allison’s YouTube channel later on.
Saphir selling shoe care.
Penny loafer of Bridlen, in a leather that looks almost like it’s been old-school grained.
Perfumes by Castle Forbes.
Twinkima.G table with dress and casuals mixed.
Lovely walking sticks by Francesco Maglia.
Busy at Euroleathers.
Atsuhiro Yoshidomi’s shine winner next to its unpolished sibling.
Toan Junie’s winner in the patina certainly had character.
Sleek derby signed Yearn.
Bresciani and their socks have been part of many super trunks now, much appreciated by visitors.
Renav Goods boots.
Two vibrant coloured exotics Belgians by CNES.
These events are great for people who want to get to know brands better and get a relationship to their products.
Calzoleria Carlino ran a promo with no upcharge on exotics (will go wide in June for all).
Special single monk strap boot by Blk Brd.
At Saphir’s free shoe shine service.
Shell Cordovan.
A new luxury polishing brush on display on Saphir’s table.
See you all next year again!
World Championships of Shoe Shining final
Award ceremonies for the World Championships of Shoe Patina and the World Championships of Shoemaking
