London
2023
Super Trunk Show
World Championships
2023
Super Trunk Show
World Championships
The 2023 World Championships in Shoemaking was special for me due to the competition’s challenge chosen theme:
In fact the whole boot is extremely powerful visually, starting with the shape of the last with extreme curves ending with contrasting stitches, gold and green over the black leather. The most intriguing element of this boot is not so easy to spot at a first glance, only a few people notice that something is exceptional and it is not the very high density of the welt stitching (30 steps/ inch).
It is in the construction method, considered by many as the Holy Grail in shoemaking. The ‘fully closed construction’ is a way of trapping the last on purpose inside the shoe by closing the uppers without any opening and yet the shoe will still be hollow. In the golden years of shoemaking this was often the mark of a true master.
The construction method needed to be rediscovered since nothing like this exists today and the knowledge was lost for more than a century.
After two years of trying various techniques, I finally perfected a viable solution. The tongue of the boot is much longer than usual and is stitched all around to the uppers thus trapping the last inside.
World renowned shoe nerd Justin Fitz Patrick (of The Shoe Snob) one of the organizers and permanent jury member of the World Championships in Shoemaking, himself a shoe designer, described this boot as ‘On of The Greatest Boot Ever Made’.