Berluti up close.

The students at Parsons have worked along with the New York Times and several artisans to document artisans in action. The first video is Berluti and the second shows Marc Screiner as he crafts leather handbags. You can also check out some of the other featured artisans.

Berluti from Art of Craftsmanship on Vimeo.

Crush from Art of Craftsmanship on Vimeo.

Learn shoemaking (on a plane)

Here’s a trick I learned from my partner. She’s interested in doing a career transition. Some of the advice she read suggested that in addition to doing the new thing, you can also learn quite a bit, by, wait for it… reading. I know, who’d of thought. So I recently came across this series of books by Adriana Trigiani. The first, Very Valentine has been out for a couple of years. Apparently it’s a novel about a family with a shoemaking business. I’m guessing readers will have to wade through some family drama, sex and intrigue on their way to shoe-making gems, but since we can’t be cutting leather on the bus or plane, this might be a good way to get some background knowledge. If anyone’s read it, let me know.

The Yule Mule

After a very long break from shoe making (work deadlines, vacation, holidays) I was back at it this morning.

Online Source List for Shoes. (It’s coming)
Last summer I inherited all of the shoe making materials from my former teacher, Gaza Bowen. Gaza passed away in the summer of 2005. As I was going through her materials, I came across some wonderful source lists that I’ve never thought to put online. I’m in the process of formatting that right now. Gaza was such a wonderful person and so steeped in the handmade shoe community. I hope some of her intense spirit will live on through folks who make their own shoes. I also hope that by making the sourcing more accessible, more folks will be able to get into it. Until it’s published, I’m happy to send you an unformatted version.

Shoemaking book
I’d love your feedback here. After some prompting from Carissa at Snowflyzone I decided that I’m going to start a book on shoe making. My hunch is that Chronicle Books would be a great publisher for it. I’m working on the first chapter now which will be about creating a pair of mules. (a term, that I’ve always hated. My challenge, then, will be to create a really cool looking pair.) At any rate, I’d love to know what sorts of things you all would like to see in a book about shoe making.

Building a functional version. Flip Flop
I’m also working on the functional version of the venentian flip flop (needs a better name). The workshop’s a bit busy.

Venetian Flip Flop

Prototyping is such a discipline. I was so tempted to use leather to try this out. Paper has similar stiffness so it did the trick. When in doubt, don’t buy/make anything.

There might be something here, but since I’m not that steeped in the fashion world, I’m sure this could have been done before. If anyone knows of something similar, please let me know. The idea is that the initial strap holds the foot and the rest are there as decoration. I’m pleased with the architectural aspects of it and I think there could be some interesting things that happen with the light on the different layers. The underside of the leather also has tons of possibility. I’m also curious how it will interact with the shape of the foot. This is going to yield some unusual lines.

Questions:
How comfortable will it be? How will it perform in action? Will it be playful? Annoying?

Learnings:
The paper was great. Just pinned it to the EVA blank. No glue, no waiting, infinitely modifiable. I need that.

Other thoughts:
I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. Just playing around trying to find something that is worth pursuing in more detail. Trying to come up up with something new is hard.