Prototyping
My initial idea for this pair considered using top pieces remaining from the wholecut lasting process of both - the upper and lining. But it gave back too complicated look and feel. There was also not enough of extra material to create something interesting here.
My formal training was reduced to five days in total. It was an essential and mind-opening experience. During those hours, I fully understood how amateurish my approach was previously. Especially having “time is money” in mind as principal. But the work I did was so standard, at the same time. I’ve made a pair of loafers within that five days. I was simply guided by professional shoemaker. That was it!
Knowing the basics or standards gives you a good foundation, that’s for sure. At some point, though, you need to ask yourself: is that how you wanna do this? My take on shoemaking is to look for other solutions. Finding alternative ways makes the everyday journey fun to me. The time I’ve spent next to a shoemaker, who does the job throughout all his life, gave me the answer. I’m so not into that. I’ve understood, that my approach has more to do with tinkering than the ways of: “Okay, let’s do that thing!”. I want to cherish my natural curiousness as my gift from God.
The final pair will sport this design idea. I’m very happy with that look and feel.
I’m a journeyman, always in search for something new. I don’t want to get to the final destination, I want to keep travel.
That kind of outlook on the job force me to experiment constantly. This is a fantastic position to be in. Working on pretty standard shoemaking in my day job, I can let my mind and hands go free to take a look outside of the box, while working on my own stuff.
With all that in mind, let’s go back to my wholecut pumps project. It is a great example of fun and necessity of prototyping. Overall, the project is all about using as little pieces of leather as possible. Streamlined, simple design featuring my unique edgy classic looks. As my second goal, I went ahead and figured out how to avoid the welt, yet I’ve still kept the feel of a welted construction type.
As previously stated, my aim was to use the leather piece from the very top of the last, after wholecut lasting process is done. My initial design idea wasn’t a success, though. It turned out that there’s far too little left, to take a meaningful advantage of that extra material. So what I did was to reduce it even more.
This time around, I was happy with the result. One straight cut on top of the lining leather and I was able to fold it over the wholecut upper part. This maneuver gave me a little piece of leather purely for the looks on the front and edge stiffener on the back. In this kind of footwear style, it is upmost important to hold the heel firmly inside the shoe. That stiff top line is super helpful in that way. Apart from its usefulness, I really like the feel of it. That single piece of leather covers the edge of the upper and it is designed to withstand the test of time functionally.
It was an interesting thing to learn that the construction method taken from my dream did work well in the real world.
My goal was to relinquish the welt completely by folding over the upper the midsole edge and sew through it.
Making a single-piece solutions excites me pretty much, as you can see clearly. The leather is so graceful of a material to do so. Technically, I know it’s possible now, but I’m still not sure about longevity of that system.
The idea for this construction method is quite straight forward. It is sewing through the midsole and insole. So that outside, welt-like part and the groove under the shoe holds the insole edge in between, thus making it all a hand-sewn construction. Although it looks simple, it is rather difficult thing to make. If it’s not sturdy enough to be truly functional, this method is certainly not worth the time needed to produce it. This is the greatest advantage of making a fully wearable prototypes, though. The streamlined construction looks attractive on paper, but one can never be completely sure if it works well too, until you put its prototype to the field test.
The upper design and unique construction of this pair deserves more attention here. At some point, I will probably publish the making process of the final pair in my Tutorials section.