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The best tips are often the simplest. Like this one, that you should occasionally turn the shoe bags inside out and shake it to remove all the gravel and dirt that often accumulates in the fabric, to eliminate the risk of small scratches when the shoes are packed in the bags.
Tomorrow Saturday is the time for the big shoe competition Shoe Shining Champion of Champions at Isetan in Tokyo, where the three world champions and a Russian, Japanese and our latest Swedish champion Michael Håkansson will make up. An event that can be viewed live on YouTube, more info below.
On the 11-16th of September the famous department store Isetan Men’s in Tokyo are hosting the first Shoe Expo, with lots of shoe happenings during several days. I’m pleased to have worked together with them on three parts, the premiere of the Shoe Shining Champions of Champions contest, where the three world champions and one Japanese champion, Swedish champion and Russian champion will battle it out in a huge competition, a seminar with the top trio in the World Championships in Shoemaking, and an exhibition with their shoes plus the world champs patina winner.
One always talk about how much easier things are with good tools, and this also applies to shoe care and the brushes we use. Here is a comprehensive guide on the various shoe brushes available, how to use them and examples of good alternatives.
To protect your fine welted shoes in a pair of shoe bags when travelling is a given for most people. Still it’s not rare to get small dents on the shoes after their time in the travel bag. Something that can easily be avoided by using double shoe bags.
The first world champion in shoe shining, Yuya Hasegawa, is featured in a new mini-documentary series made by the Japanese public broadcasting company NHK. A lovely little film portraying his way to become a pioneer among the new wave of professional shoe shiners, available to watch with English subtitles.
Now that the spring is about to make its entrance here in the northern hemisphere, the leather soled shoes are brought out from the closet. After been stored away for a number of months it may be advisable to give the shoes a round of shoe care before using them, more on this in today’s post. Also briefly about an article in Financial Times How to Spend it about the entry of Japanese shoe manufacturers in Europe, where yours truly is one of the interviewees.
When wax polish has been used for some time and have dried a bit it usually cracks into smaller pieces, which can make it more difficult to use. Here’s how to easily solve that problem.
Not many have heard of the new Swiss shoe care brand Siegol. Replace the first three letters and more recognise it: Burgol. Siegol is the new brand of the family who founded Burgol in the 1930s, but who, under dramatic forms, lost the right to the brand a few years ago.
This is a topic I’ve been touching previously here on the blog, but since it’s something I still get a lot of questions about it, it might be worth its own article. We talk about cleaning your application brushes.
