l'll take a picture of a 108 year old handmade childs boot in a couple of weeks. lt was made in Melbourne.

How ironic.....l could be the guy who preserves the legacy of R.M.Williams one day haha.

Good news Shooey, these guys are starting to trust you & take you seriously. Exciting for me to read about it, so it must be super exciting for you. I hope you have your finances sorted, so you can put the time into this, it would be sad if you had to stop halfway through to chase $$$. I hope your dreams come true.

^10% of what she told you has come true, but is that the 10% that counts?

Changing industry when you've got a mortgage and stuff is nigh on impossible. Good luck Shooey.

Last edited by fxh (2010-06-12 00:07:40)

Last edited by The_Shooman (2010-06-19 20:28:07)

shoey

I was at my local discount wine store tonight and I dropped into the impromptu bar  a few mates have in the back lane.

My mate the second hand/antiquarian bookshop owner has a garage backing onto the lane where books are stored and in summer it's occasionally open for sales.

Most nights after 6 pm theres a small 4 or 5 people gathering in the bowels with wine and LPs played on an old record player.

Anyway I dropped in tonight and there was a motor bike outside. The guy was in there in leathers.

I said " I know where you got those boots - Gertrude Street Fitzroy"

I was spot on.

I've said before I had a pair from 30 years ago.

Anyway he, the motor bike guy, offered me a glass of shiraz and then said that the Fitzroy boot maker guy had closed down about 10 years ago but got tired of retirement and about a year or two ago opened up again for business - somewhere behind Gertrude street - handmade boots and shoes for $250 aud.

(I suspect they are not up to your high standards but nevertheless ...)

Have you heard of this development?

Last edited by fxh (2010-07-03 03:08:09)

l see Russian cordwainer Alex tommorrow. l ask him to teach me shoemaking. Hopefully he will say yes.

A man has agreed to teach me shoe making, it is Melbourne's most qualified cordwainer, the man who did 12 years working all aspects of the shoe business (last making excepted), he had one on one tuition. lt's just a case of me spending a few hours with him once a week and practising the rest at home in the evenings. First thing he will teach me is how to sharpen a knife, he said it took him 2 months to learn just that skill. To start my journey l need four things: a knife (handmade using a hax saw blade), a certain hammer, surgical sissors, a divider and a brand new sewing machine that sews leather (a new one because parts are easy to get).

He explained the economics of the business, pattern making and design...all fasinating stuff. He also talked about womens shoos and how easy it is for costs to blow out. Sometimes leather has to be beaten out for half a day before it's ready for lasting, no wonder handmade can cost so much, so much behind the scenes work/preparation needed. A real education: he teach me the hard way, not the cost cutting way, he will teach me properly. He also talked about glue and how he has made some special order shoos using egg yolk and water as glue for attaching the soles, and how he has to bake cooking flour in the oven to make other good glues etc. He also mentioned that many hand makers had cats in there workshops so they kept the mice away from the ingredients for making glue.

We've got some good plans to carry on the future of the handmade shoe business. and even try to build it. He says the handmade shoo market is dying, but l say that we can turn that around by marketing ourselves better and educating people, there is alot we can do to get a bigger handmade market.

l'll be posting alot less in this thread now. lt's time to start my blog. After 6 months of thinking how i'm going to approach it, i've now worked it out. l don't want my blog to be cold and clinical and boring like many shoo blogs, l want this to be a fun read, more educational and better overall. Most importantly, l want my blog to inspire people to love shoos. lt's going to be huge, there is so much to write and great stuff to post, it'll take years.

l'll get people to pick their shoos up at night.

Last edited by The_Shooman (2010-07-14 21:45:31)

7

one foot slightly longer than the other so rtw shoes have to be chosen carefully. One foot slightly wider than the other. Narrow heels. Moderate instep and alittle bit of  arch. One foot gets longer at end of day by noticable length, other foot only slightly longer. As i've said, rtw can work, but l have to be careful when trying on a pair, it's easy to make a mistake because it's hard to know how the try-on shoos will fit 10 o'clock that night. Shoos should never cause pain during any break-in period.

Last edited by The_Shooman (2010-07-14 04:34:03)

Good on ya shooey.

What are you going to use for your blog?

Blogspot/blogger or Wordpress?

Have you got a domain?

I'm (and I'm sure others will be too) happy to give advice re cheapish options