The Traveling Notebook of Shoe Makers

Chapter 3: Yuji

I was fortunate enough to meet Yuji on my recent trip to NYC when I meet Elizabeth Dunn at the Brooklyn Shoe Space studio, I had been following him on social media for quite some time so it was nice to finally meet him in person, and see how he works too. In short I was blown away by his skill and workmanship. A Japanese native Yuji finds comfort working on low tables as he did while working as a shoe maker in Japan so much so that he has a small set up in the studio too. At the time I was at the studio he was hand welting a private commission that he had been working on for a while, - it was a true piece of art work. I can't wait to see what he will be making next - be sure to keep up to date with his work via Instagram, there are some stunning work in progress images to feast your eyes on.

10 Day Shoe Making challenge

On Monday I set my self a 10 day challenge (Monday to Friday for two weeks) to design and make a collection. Last week I came out of an intensive 4 day course that helped me with the numbers side of my business, and off the back of that motivation I decided that doing a challenge where I'm able to make 5/6 pairs of shoes in 10 days would not only help me understand the intricacies of my business better but also give me good training. I've found that I'm always on a busy schedule with either modeling, assisting on courses or blogging that I have less time for actually making, life admin seems to take over and before you know it I'm back at Monday again with only half made shoes. So the next two weeks have been wiped completely clean and I WILL be making. The first two stages are mood boarding and designing, and thats what I've been up to for the first few days of this challenge. I love mood boarding there is something therapeutic about cutting sticking and arranging, I mean who doesn't like flipping through an endless amount of magazines or pinning on Pinterest? So here are my initial stages of mood boarding and designing, I'm not sure if I'm necessarily sticking to the colours I have picked out on the board as I want to use the leathers I already have to save me from wasting time and money at leather stores (which can easily take up a day and hefty wedge of cash) so with this in mind the collection will be designed around the leathers I already have in stock.