Tag
Most are aware of the rather extensive use of adhesives when making footwear, also for traditionally constructed shoes. What one don’t discuss as much is how this use affect form and function of the shoes, which it indeed can do in many ways. Here’s an hopefully enlightening article on the topic.
In the field of quality footwear, there are some terms that can be a bit confusing and unclear, especially for those who have recently become interested in the topic. Here I go through several of them and try to clarify and explain.
30 longwing brogues, made by shoemakers from all over the world. Here’s a substantial review of all the competition shoes that entered the World Championships in Shoemaking 2022. Info about the makers and the shoes, comments, pictures of the shoes and in some cases also the manufacturing process.
This is part two of the massive walkthrough of all competition shoes in the World Championships in Shoemaking 2022. Here position 11 to 30 is reviewed with comments and pictures.
Many people think that a shoe’s toe spring, the height of the tip of the toe above the ground, and the heel height only affect how the shoe feels when walking and its appearance. But it also has a bearing on how much the shoe needs to be bent when walking, which can ultimately affect how prominent the creases becomes. I’ll explain this more in detail, and delve deeper into these topics.
Articles continued:
The fact that how shoes fit affects how shoes crease is sort of common knowledge among shoe interested. However, it’s common to see misconceptions where people confuse excess creasing due to fit issues with pronounced creasing due to the properties of the leather or because of bad leather quality. Here I try to pin out the differences.
Most rarely think about it, but in many cases there are practical, utilitarian reasons that shoes look the way they do nowadays, and we’ve been used to it and think it’s the right and beautiful way. Learn the historic functional reasons why we have derby shoes, a lot of brown shoes, built-up bevelled waists, natural sole edges on workwear boots and why rugged boots have high toe spring and sleek dress shoes low toe spring.
It’s one of the most common misconceptions in the world of quality footwear: that creases on the toe cap means something is wrong. That the shoes doesn’t fit, or are badly made, or other various explanations. In reality, it’s most likely nothing that’s wrong at all, just perfectly normal. Here I explain more.
Few things say so much about the actual quality of the making on a pair of welted shoes as the work on the sole and heel edges. In this article I go through a number of details on the construction and finishing of welts, heels and sole edges and explain levels of difficulty, the difference between various solutions, if practical function or solely aesthetic, and so on.
So-called “vegan leather” is quickly gaining traction as a popular alternative to regular animal hides. What one needs to be aware of though is that vegan leather in most cases is a synthetic material made of plastic that doesn’t breath well, isn’t biodegradable at all, and can be much more harmful to the environment than traditional animal leather. Learn all about vegan alternatives to leather and other types of artificial leathers in this article, and how it compares to natural animal leather.
