Weaving

I went on a bit of a tangent last week. I just got so excited about my little shoe keeper and my excursion to Leflers and NWS Leather that I couldn't help myself. I wanted to play with leather moulding and weaving and it all came out in this shoe last week.

I started off by stretching strips of leather across the shoe keeper and securing them with masking tape to keep it tight.

As I went along I learnt a lot about the kind of shapes needed to cover the shoe. Strips going up the foot needed to increase in width from the toe, and strips going across the foot had to be wide at the sides of the foot and narrower over the top.

Once I'd finished the weaving I was faced with the dilema of removing my work in one piece. So paranoid, I covered the whole thing in tape and sewed a stitch around the base of the shoe using the leather machine (a thoroughly scary thing that takes off...)

My patterns were a little off for the rest of this shoe- i think my quarters are too short... and still I have no sole. But otherwise a good little tangent to follow. More designs to come.

Latest Shoe

I made this one this afternoon. I had the idea to have multiple layers over the tongue, so i cut a whole lot of new quarter pattern pieces in varying heights and lengths (5 in total). I then sewed them with one side of layers full attached and the other only partially. The partially attached experiment was more successful I felt, but still not quite what I had envisioned. Getting there though. I was very impressed that the machine was able to sew six layers of denim. Time to get some leather and wood going.

Shoes to Boots

These are my second and third toiles. I extended them to reach the ankle bone, more like a boot. The first bootie was too big around the ankle and gaped a bit, so I added darts and took out some fabric for the next pattern which worked quite well. Still not perfect, I'd like to change the toe shape and maybe create a bit more room in the front of the shoe. But it's time to experiment next.

The second toile (first bootie):

The third toile (second bootie):

'Master of Shoe Design'

Jan Jansen.

He has been doubed 'Master of Shoe Design' and not without reason. Coming from Holland, trained in Italy and equipped with all the skills of a traditional shoe craftsman it's little wonder he has been successfully making shoes since the 1960s. This wisdom combined with an fantastic imagination have produced some of the most forward-thinking designs over the past decades.

His shoes are often described as whimsical with their bright colours, and shapes that extend from the shoe. There is a humour to his work whether it is influenced by Dali's surrealism ('Kiss me on the couch', 1979) or pop-culture such as The Beatles ('Norwegian Wood', 1993, 'I'm Looking Through You', 1973).

What excited me most about Jansen's designs was his soles. I'm a little obsessed with soles at the moment. But Jansen's soles are so inventive and so varied too. From traditional pump heels, to wooden clogs, rubber, plastic and a particular favourite, bamboo. It is his use of wood and bamboo that has inspired me most because these are materials I'm interested in using myself.

Aside from the soles, his shoes are mostly made of calf leather with pigskin linings, he uses goat and sheepskin too. When designing a shoe, Jansen notes the importance of colour, material, etc, but emphasises the last with particular significance. For Jansen the last 'represents the beginning and the end of a shoe', so it is vital that the last is accurate before anything else. Here are some of his designs, it's no suprise my favourites are mostly from the 60s and 70s...

'Build me Up' on the cover of Panorama, December 1972.

This shoe was designed so that the soles could be added or removed and interchanged. However, unlike this photo only two soles could be worn at once because otherwise the wearer couldn't walk.

'Woody' on the cover of the Holland Herald number 11, 1969. Jansen's best-selling design.

'Rattan', 1973. The bamboo shoe!

The other interesting thing about Jansen is the business side of his creations. He is as he says 'a one-man company', everything is done himself. He has never had a design assistant or business partner and he attributes this to not being able to deligate, 'my way or not at all' were his words. From a business point of view this would limit production enormously. Something Jansen acknowledges in his view 'creation is more important than running a company'.

Picture of Jansen, Panorama magazine cover and Holland Herald cover taken from 'Jan Jasen: I live, sleep and breath shoes'. T.Dop, L. Bonekamp. 2007. Terra Lannoo. Netherlands.

'Woody' and 'Rattan' images from www.janjansen.com

My First Shoe

Below are images of my first ever hand made shoe, made by me. It's a single shoe that is very simple. I cut the pattern from a pair of brogues I was wearing at the time and sewed it just using the straight sewer.

There were two main aims in this experiment. The first was to test this technique called Veldstschoen Construction. I read about it in my shoe-making manual from the library, it is also known as the stitched-down method because the lasting (seam) allowance is turned out and stitched to the sole, much like a desert boot style. I saw it as a really useful technique that could easily apply to the less conventional shoe making methods I will probably employ, such as hammering my shoes to their soles... The second aim was very straight-forward, simply to see whether I actually had any hope in making shoes. If this little exercise was a miserable failure, I was ready to abandon my persuit of shoemaking. But, while this shoe is not perfect it's a start that I'm not too unhappy about.