Ep. 34 - Rob James, Euroleathers, about leather wholesaling

In this episode we are putting the spotlight on an integral part of the shoe industry, that aren't that known to the wider audience since it doesn't deal with the regular consumer: the leather wholesalers. One of the leading such for the shoe industry in the UK is Euroleathers, where Rob James is a Director. Earlier this spring I visited him and the family business in Northamptonshire, had a tour of the warehouse, and sat down with Rob to talk about the company, about wholesalers part in the shoemaking sector, about leather quality, about what types of leathers that are quickly on the rise, and much more.

With this episode we are back in Japan again, back in Tokyo, where I met Takashi Horiguchi, or "Gucci" as he mostly is called, who run the acclaimed vintage classic men's shoe store Super 8 Shoes. A store that focus on American and British shoes from the 1950's to 1980's, known for the overall very good condition of the selection they offer, and quite a large amount of New Old Stock, old shoes that are unworn. The store also has a repair workshop. During the 15+ years that Gucci has worked with vintage shoes, he's been extremely dedicated in acquiring knowledge about old shoes, which he now pass on to his customers, both in his physical store and online. Much of the stock in the store comes from numerous trips to mainly the US, where he's been hunting for good vintage shoes himself. We talk about his journey with Super 8 Shoes, about how vintage footwear differ from the shoes made today, how the interest in vintage men's shoes has developed, and much more.

It's time for another edition of the appreciated Question and answers specials, with Daniel Wegan of Catella Shoemaker. Daniel made a name of himself when he for several years ran the bespoke department at the English company Gaziano & Girling, now since some years he has his own bespoke shoe brand Catella. He also won the shoemaking world championships in 2019. In this episode some of the topics covered are how the bespoke shoe world has changed since he started some 15 years ago, we talk about why he has stopped posting on Instagram, we go into how sneakers are influencing the world of classic shoes, and much more.

For this episode I met up with Jim McCormack, a legendary bespoke shoemaker in England, who has spent over five decades in the trade. For more or less all of these years, he has worked as an outworker, doing bottom making for many different firms. England is the country in the world where the outworker system is the most extended. We talk a lot about the freelance system, how it works, the pros and cons and so on. But before that we cover Jim McCormack's own journey into the shoemaking world, hear stories from for exampleJohn Lobb back in the 70's, go through the different stages of the bespoke shoemaking scene in the UK the past 50 years, and much more.

For episode 30 I sat down with Ben Robinson of Stitchdown. As you likely know, Shoegazing's focus on the site, podcast, events etc is on classic dress shoes, well Stitchdown is sort of the equivalent within the world of workwear boots, or heritage boots, or whatever you want to call it. In short, Ben knows a whole lot about boots and rugged footwear. So, apart from learning how Ben ended up in the shoe world and the journey with Stitchdown, we talked about the incredible boom that workwear boots has seen in recent years, the reason behind it and where it's going, we talked about why good quality footwear of all kinds will and need to continue to be popular, and much more.

For this episode, number 29, I visited the well-renowned shoe store Leffot in New York and talked to the founder and owner Steven Taffel. When the world entered the digital era, Leffot was one of the first influential multi-brand stores specialising in classic, mainly welted, men's shoes, and it has had a big impact both on its customer base and on other stores around the world that have been inspired by it. With Steven's long background in the business we went deep on the classic shoe industry in the US and how it has evolved and look to evolve going forward, but we also of course talked about his own journey.

In this episode, aim is to connect historic shoemaking with the present, and we do this together with William Efe Laborde. An independent bespoke shoemaker based in London, who has a huge interest in old shoes, tools and leathers which he both brings in to his own shoemaking, and as a side business he also refurbish and sell old vintage tools. Given that classic shoes in general use old traditional construction methods, of course a lot is similar in how shoes are made now compared to 100 years ago or so. But also a lot has changed. We talk about what was better back then than now, and also the other way around. Learn which area of shoemaking that William Efe Laborde thinks is at an all time high now in present time, why the best tools were made before World War II, and much more.

This is the second Q&A Special with Daniel Wegan, the first one was really popular, so we thought we'd do another round. For those who don't know, Daniel Wegan is a Swede who since many years live in the UK in Kettering, Northampton. He used to work for the bespoke department of Gaziano & Girling, but a few years ago he left to start his own brand Catella. Worth mentioning as well is that he won the World Championships of Shoemaking in 2019. We go through a bunch of topics in this episode, for example we talk about the differences between working at a bigger firm and running his own brand, about the challenges to find good leather, about the use of modern technology in shoemaking, what bespoke shoemakers need to do to continue to be relevant, and much more.

In this episode we will go all in on the nitty gritty of shoe care. We do this together with Anders Sundström, who has developed the new premium shoe care range Paul Brunngård, for the Swedish company with the same name. Paul Brunngård is the largest shoe care company in Scandinavia, but previously focus has been on more basic shoe care products and eco-friendly stuff. Now they wanted to develop their own range of premium products, a task given to the shoe care expert Anders Sundström. We will talk a bit about Anders background and his work with developing the nicely designed Paul Brunngård shoe care range, and then go into the details of what shoe care products contains, how the various ingredients affect leather, the good and the bad, and so on. If you like when the podcast nerd in on things, this episode is for you.

In this episode you'll get to meet Seiji McCarthy, a shoemaker with an American father and a Japanese mother, who grew up in Philadelphia on the US East coast but now since seven years lives in Tokyo, Japan. Here he is merging the Japanese highly skilled craftsmanship with traditional American style footwear. This was not always the case though, up until a few years ago he did more dressy, British-Japanese style shoes, but Seiji felt that it wasn't fully him and what he really wanted to do, so he decided to revamp the brand. We'll talk a lot about this process, and about how his American heritage started to blossom first when he lived in Japan with the passion you can find here for this, about how he really wish to be a part of the Japanese preservation of American style, and much more.