Shoegazing Podcast

This time it’s all about shoe repairs and cobblers. I met up with Carina Eneroth of Skomakeri Framåt, which sort of translates to Cobblery Forward, a cobbler and bespoke shoemaker based in Stockholm, Sweden. She’s been in the business for almost four decades now, and apart from being one of the owners of Skomakeri Framåt, with a Royal Warrant of Appointment to the Swedish Royal family, she’s also...

We live in a digital world, and nowadays a lot of both marketing and sales takes place solely online in various ways. One online shoe retailer who have successfully used all the digital possibilities is Kostas Mandilaris of The Noble Shoe, who sells among others Carlos Santos, Paolo Scafora and Crockett & Jones. In this episode we talk about the benefits and challenges with selling relatively expe...

For this episode I met Takashi Fukuda, who is a legendary buyer at the department store Isetan Men’s in Tokyo. For many years he has been the head buyer at their shoe department, and has been highly influential on what will be found on the shoe shelves at Isetan Men’s. Isetan is a Japanese chain of department stores, with it’s huge flagship store in Shinjuku in central Tokyo. There they have one b...

This episode was recorded at the Micam shoe fair in Milan, Italy, back in February. In this episode we’re meeting Jonathan Church, one of the owners of the British firm Cheaney & Sons. Jonathan has worked in the footwear industry for three decades, first in the firm bearing his family name, Church’s, later with Cheaney. Cheaney was one of the last Northampton based shoe factories to transcend from...

This time you will meet Robin Chang, founder of the leading quality shoe store in Taiwan, Oak Room, located in the capital Taipei. He has been involved in the shoe business for many years, and is considered one of the foremost experts on the classic shoe industry in Asia. In this episode we will focus on the situation for factories making classic quality shoes as well as bespoke shoemakers in Asia...

This episode was recorded at the Micam shoe fair in Milan, Italy, back in February. I sat down with Richard Utting, Export Manager at Loake, the famous British manufacturer of Goodyear welted shoes. Loake was a brand that, contrary to many other Northampton based companies, first got big on the domestic market and then went on to grow internationally. Richard Utting has been a large part of this j...

Christophe Corthay is a legendary bespoke shoemaker from France. He has spent more than three decades making shoes, previously with his brother Pierre at Maison Corthay, but nowadays he runs Atelier du Tranchet together with Sebastian "Toulouz" Algans and Phillippe de Paillette. Those who’ve seen their shoes know that most of them are truly artistic creations, that looks like nothing you see from...

In this episode of the Shoegazing Podcast I met Maslow So from Hong Kong, the man behind the brand Mori of Shoemakers, who in a very interesting way try to combine elements from bespoke shoes with factory-made RTW shoes. Mori has various bespoke shoemakers from around the world designing lasts and models, and then a factory in China producing hand welted lovely looking shoes offered at a very comp...

Meet the famous shoemaker Hiro Yanagimachi, one of the pioneers of the new wave of Japanese bespoke shoemaking. When he started his business two decades ago there were only a few Japanese making bespoke shoes, today there’s more than 50 bespoke shoemakers in the country, now one of the leading scenes in the world. How this came to be is what we focused our discussion around.

What's the main challenges when setting up a new shoe brand, how is it to be a small player working together with a big factory, and how do you succeed in today's highly competitive market? These are some of the questions that Tom Brone, the man behind the brand Sons of Henrey, answers in this episode.

Hear bespoke shoemaker Daniel Wegan talk about dedication, which took him to the bespoke department of Gaziano & Girling, made him the head of the same department, and this year he won the World Championships in Shoemaking. He also gives a bunch of advice to aspiring shoemakers.

In this episode, I met the famous Japanese bespoke shoemaker Yohei Fukuda, who besides making some of the finest shoes in the world, also have been very successful with creating a brand image, something quite difficult especially for small bespoke shoemakers. It’s around this topic we focused our discussion.

For the first edition of the Shoegazing Podcast, I sat down with Patrik Löf, founder and owner of the famous Swedish shoe shop Skoaktiebolaget, to talk about the journey they have been on and about the past, current and future situation for multi-brand men’s shoe stores.