Monday, May 30

Spectators





 As a continuum to my last post, I'll continue with a pair of  bold spectator shoes that I made for myself with the same lasts as "The Blacks". As I stated before, my urge to get winklepickers drove me to making them for myself, and as a fan of the oxford cut the full brogues and especially the traditional two toned Spectator shoes stole my heart away with their classy yet somewhat intentional attention seeking posture (:D Nice line :D)
So I was again thrilled of trying something I couldn't find from the web: Spectator winklepickers!

They involved alot of experimental stuff, so eventually there's some little details I would've done better. Like the brogue styled holes, that I first designed to be minimal, didn't actually give the effect that I wanted. And you can see the red leather sole which I scraped with glass? Well the scraping didn't go all too well. But nonetheless I'm quite happy to the result and they have a much firmer hold on the foot compared to "The Blacks". The sole design was also my first with alot of curvy lines going here and there, but they fit the whole.

And I DO love to hear comments, even though you'd be just drifting by ;)

-Otso

The blacks




Yeah, I know my size in french is 48 :D





I do make men's shoes too:
I first started to grow my hair back after a long time, so I needed a neat and cool hairstyle -> ended up in a 50's quiff -> ended up buying more of the same styled clothes -> needed winklepickers -> decided to make a pair :D. So after long hours, mostly up until late night, I was building from scratch or more precisely out of plaster a model that turned out to be the lasts for making a pair of decent winklepickers.

As a kind of a test pair, I wanted them to be practical and simple, so I could use them with varied types of clothing. By practical I mean that while being all black they're really easy to maintain, and I chose relatively softer uppers and lining to be more comfy. Black, as I've come to understand is also an easy but maybe abit boring color for shoes. By simple I mean the style is just your very basic oxford, plain and simple. The heel and outer sole are all rubber/EVA for a quick manufacturing process.

All in all I was very pleased, but through some days of wear I noticed a few things: The toe stiffeners were too soft, the outer sole rubber material was crap, and maybe I should've used something better for the uppers too.
So now the lasts and "The Blacks" are back at my work for some fine tuning. I'll post the repairs project later on. Tally ho!

Saturday, May 28

Yenni




As my first official post, you see a pair of shoes that I made to a friend. They're truly bespoke, with full leather lining and uppers, wooden leather covered heel that I sculpted and a leather sole. This was a visionary project given as a surprise birthday gift to a friend <3