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Beetroot, tea and saffron. These are some of the ingredients that Gianluca Occhiuto uses when he paints shoes. In his men’s shoe store Il Pantheon in Oslo, Norway, he sells shoes from Italian makers Bettanin & Venturi, among others, and he himself is responsible for the extraordinary finish.
Raymar, often called “the Japanese Meermin”, has been making waves domestically in recent years and grown their steadily. Now they also start to turn to the international market with their highly affordable Goodyear welted and hand welted shoes – with the latter offered from less than €200 – not least with the participation at the London Super Trunk Show next month. Here’s an interview with the two brothers behind the brand.
Råland Bootmaker is a one-man operation creating seriously solid boots by hand – in Sweden. Now Adam Persson, the man behind the brand, has collaborated with the Swedish store Second Sunrise to launch a RTW engineer boot in Maryam horsebutt.
Last week, the winter edition of the world’s largest shoe fair, Micam, and the largest leather fair, Lineapelle, were held in Milan, Italy. Shoegazing was there, here’s a summary of the impressions from the fairs as a whole and from some selected exhibitors.
Elon Musk, Ingvar Kamprad, Anna Wintour, Bill Gates – every industry has its driven entrepreneurs. In classic men’s shoes, Marcos Fernandez Cabezas is one of the best, the man behind some of France’s most successful quality shoe brands of recent decades.
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In Osaka, Japan, Akiyoshi Nishiyama of Ann Bespoke has created a footwear brand with a distinctly unique personal character – without having his own house style, at least according to himself. Shoes I’ve admired for many years. A few weeks ago I finally got to see them in person, and have a conversation with the man behind them.
Last month samples from eight different bespoke shoemakers were gathered at Gallery Quadro in central Tokyo, in ambition to open up for interest from a new group of people. Shoegazing visited the reception, and talked with a few of the shoemakers exhibiting: Nayuta Takahashi and Kiyo Uda who also run Tweed & Mouth, and Ken Hishinuma of Khish the Work.
This June the summer edition of the men’s fashion fair Pitti Uomo took place in Florence, the first proper one since the pandemic hit. Shoegazing was there and checked out a bunch of the shoe exhibitors, here’s a summary of what could be found and some news from talks with brand representatives, who witness on the positive trend the quality footwear sector is seeing.
The bespoke shoemaker Akira Tani, from Japan but based in Italy, has a lot of things that point towards soon being one of the most hyped makers in the industry: A slightly more casual house style highly suitable for how more and more people dress today, some of the best finishing in the world, and a price tag of just €2,300 (including VAT) for full bespoke. Shoegazing visited him in Florence.
One of several Japanese manufacturers of really nice midrange welted shoes is the Vinaseiko factory, with their main brand Perfetto plus Kanpekina and Fugashin. It’s one example of a company working successfully with a joint factory in Southeast Asia to produce shoes with a great quality-price ratio. Shoegazing has paid it a visit.
