It's time for another edition of the appreciated Question and answers specials, with Daniel Wegan of Catella Shoemaker. Daniel made a name of himself when he for several years ran the bespoke department at the English company Gaziano & Girling, now since some years he has his own bespoke shoe brand Catella. He also won the shoemaking world championships in 2019. In this episode some of the topics covered are how the bespoke shoe world has changed since he started some 15 years ago, we...

For this episode I met up with Jim McCormack, a legendary bespoke shoemaker in England, who has spent over five decades in the trade. For more or less all of these years, he has worked as an outworker, doing bottom making for many different firms. England is the country in the world where the outworker system is the most extended. We talk a lot about the freelance system, how it works, the pros and cons and so on. But before that we cover Jim McCormack's own journey into the shoemaking world,...

For episode 30 I sat down with Ben Robinson of Stitchdown. As you likely know, Shoegazing's focus on the site, podcast, events etc is on classic dress shoes, well Stitchdown is sort of the equivalent within the world of workwear boots, or heritage boots, or whatever you want to call it. In short, Ben knows a whole lot about boots and rugged footwear. So, apart from learning how Ben ended up in the shoe world and the journey with Stitchdown, we talked about the incredible boom that workwear...

For this episode, number 29, I visited the well-renowned shoe store Leffot in New York and talked to the founder and owner Steven Taffel. When the world entered the digital era, Leffot was one of the first influential multi-brand stores specialising in classic, mainly welted, men's shoes, and it has had a big impact both on its customer base and on other stores around the world that have been inspired by it. With Steven's long background in the business we went deep on the classic shoe...

In this episode, aim is to connect historic shoemaking with the present, and we do this together with William Efe Laborde. An independent bespoke shoemaker based in London, who has a huge interest in old shoes, tools and leathers which he both brings in to his own shoemaking, and as a side business he also refurbish and sell old vintage tools. Given that classic shoes in general use old traditional construction methods, of course a lot is similar in how shoes are made now compared to 100...

In this episode we will go all in on the nitty gritty of shoe care. We do this together with Anders Sundström, who has developed the new premium shoe care range Paul Brunngård, for the Swedish company with the same name. Paul Brunngård is the largest shoe care company in Scandinavia, but previously focus has been on more basic shoe care products and eco-friendly stuff. Now they wanted to develop their own range of premium products, a task given to the shoe care expert Anders Sundström. We...

In this episode you'll get to meet Seiji McCarthy, a shoemaker with an American father and a Japanese mother, who grew up in Philadelphia on the US East coast but now since seven years lives in Tokyo, Japan. Here he is merging the Japanese highly skilled craftsmanship with traditional American style footwear. This was not always the case though, up until a few years ago he did more dressy, British-Japanese style shoes, but Seiji felt that it wasn't fully him and what he really wanted to do,...

It's time for the second special edition Q&A episode, where you listeners and readers of Shoegazing.com gets to ask questions to some big names from the quality shoe industry. This round it's the most famous of all Japanese bespoke shoemakers that is answering your questions, Yohei Fukuda. Since about 14 years his bespoke shoes and nowadays also top class RTW and MTO offerings has been a holy grail for many shoe lovers around the world. Hear him give his best advice to aspiring...

Affan Mohammed is the Managing Director of Bridlen Shoes, an Indian maker of Goodyear welted footwear that is getting more and more attention both domestically and internationally. Founded by Affan's father Hasan who had worked his whole life with leather craft and shoemaking, and Mr. Watanabe from Japan, who among other things was involved in the start of Meermin. To make high quality Goodyear welted shoes like Bridlen in India, a country with lower wages which mainly has a reputation of...

This episode, number 22, will be featuring no other than Jean-Michel Casalonga. He is the main lastmaker and workshop manager of Berluti's Paris workshop. The French company Berluti is one of the bigger quality shoe brands in the world, nowadays more of a full fashion menswear brand , owned by the luxury conglomerate LVMH, with stores all around the world. Berluti has two workshops making their bespoke shoes, one in Paris above their original Rue Marbeuf store just next to the Champs Élysées,...

In this episode we put the spotlight on the thriving boot and shoemaking scene in Indonesia, we do this together with Emil Rahmana Putra. He is the founder of the two brands Winson and Midas Bootmaker, where the first now is making the finest fully handmade dress shoes in the country, a true premium product of absolute top quality, while Midas focus on more affordable still excellent handmade Ready to Wear and Made to Order workwear boots. The company I work for, Skolyx, has been...

In this episode you'll get to meet the very charismatic bespoke shoemaker Patrick Frei from Germany. He made a name of himself more widely when he won the World Championships in Shoemaking in 2018, and is seen by many as one of the greatest shoemakers around today. He works out of his workshop in Freiburg in Southwest of Germany, together with his shoemaking partner Kazuya Kimura. For those of you who have seen shoes made by the Patrick Frei workshop, you'll know they have a distinct...

For this episode I once again was able to sit down with the interviewee in person. A couple of weeks ago I travelled to Germany and France, and one of the stops was Tanneries Haas, one of the leading calf leather tanneries in Europe. Here I met Jacques Kress, Export manager and responsible for all the Tanneries Haas' clients from the shoe industry, who has a background as European agent for Allen Edmonds. In this conversation with Jacques we'll get to know the background of the famous...

In this episode we are meeting a proper shoe collector - André Simha, from Geneva, Switzerland. Known to many as andrel42 on Instagram, where he shows off his seriously impressive shoe collection, with around 300 pairs of welted shoes from literally all over the world. For over four decades he's had a big interest in classic shoes, and owns everything from the most famous brands down to very obscure new makers very few have heard of. We talk about what it is that drives him to continue to buy...

This time we're going to go in-depth on the experience of ordering bespoke shoes, this from a bespoke shoemakers viewpoint. Nicholas Templeman is an independent bespoke maker based in London, England, who left his job at the legendary workshop of John Lobb to set up his own brand. He has a reputation of being very service-minded, going that extra length to make both the process and the final products something special for the clients. We talked a lot on the customer experience topic, but also...

In this episode I talk with Rezső Kuti of the Hungarian brand Vass Shoes, certainly the most famous shoe brand of the country, who've been making hand welted fully handmade shoes since the 1970's. Rezső worked as Sales Manager for the company for about a decade and built up its internationally successful MTO programme, he then spent a couple of years as Factory Manager for Heinrich Dinkelacker's Budapest factory and started the brand Passus Shoes, before re-joining Vass as Sales Consultant...

In this episode we meet Leon Fan, who together with Kevin Li founded the famous shoe store Medallion Shoes, now with two huge brick and mortar stores in Beijing and Shanghai in China. They have sort of become the Chinese equivalent to the Isetan Men's shoe department in Tokyo, Japan, in the way it's not only setting a big mark on the huge domestic market, but also internationally. This also goes for the brand of fully handmade Ready to Wear, Made to Order and bespoke shoes Acme Shoemaker,...

The Shoegazing Podcast is back, this time with a new type of special edition episodes that will pop-up every now and then, called Q&A Specials. Basically you listeners and readers of Shoegazing.com get to ask questions to some famous names from the classic shoe industry. This round is with Daniel Wegan, the Swede who made a name of himself working at the bespoke department of Gaziano & Girling in England for ten years. He placed second in the World Championships in Shoemaking 2018,...

This time it’s all about shoe repairs and cobblers. I met up with Carina Eneroth of Skomakeri Framåt, which sort of translates to Cobblery Forward, a cobbler and bespoke shoemaker based in Stockholm, Sweden. She’s been in the business for almost four decades now, and apart from being one of the owners of Skomakeri Framåt, with a Royal Warrant of Appointment to the Swedish Royal family, she’s also on the board for the Swedish Cobbler’s Association. With the mature shoe repair industry in...

We live in a digital world, and nowadays a lot of both marketing and sales takes place solely online in various ways. One online shoe retailer who have successfully used all the digital possibilities is Kostas Mandilaris of The Noble Shoe, who sells among others Carlos Santos, Paolo Scafora and Crockett & Jones. In this episode we talk about the benefits and challenges with selling relatively expensive quality shoes only online, about how to work with digital marketing in various ways,...

For this episode I met Takashi Fukuda, who is a legendary buyer at the department store Isetan Men’s in Tokyo. For many years he has been the head buyer at their shoe department, and has been highly influential on what will be found on the shoe shelves at Isetan Men’s. Isetan is a Japanese chain of department stores, with it’s huge flagship store in Shinjuku in central Tokyo. There they have one building dedicated to women’s fashion and more, and one whole building with only men’s clothing...

This episode was recorded at the Micam shoe fair in Milan, Italy, back in February. In this episode we’re meeting Jonathan Church, one of the owners of the British firm Cheaney & Sons. Jonathan has worked in the footwear industry for three decades, first in the firm bearing his family name, Church’s, later with Cheaney. Cheaney was one of the last Northampton based shoe factories to transcend from focusing on Private Label to sell shoes under their own name, which they did after Jonathan...

This time you will meet Robin Chang, founder of the leading quality shoe store in Taiwan, Oak Room, located in the capital Taipei. He has been involved in the shoe business for many years, and is considered one of the foremost experts on the classic shoe industry in Asia. In this episode we will focus on the situation for factories making classic quality shoes as well as bespoke shoemakers in Asia, outside of Japan. It’s a topic that many in Europe or the US know very little of. Things are...