Rock'a me baby!

Some randomness from days recently past:

1960's winklepickers with cuban heels. For men. I think they're way elegant. Many consider pointy men's shoes disturbing and vulgar, but let them scream to the comments. Or something.
This picture is hanging from a wall in Kankaanpää shoemaker school.

And here's the proof that goodyear welted, classic and elegant shoes were made for men. In Finland.

And a peek at what I do daily at my desk - at work: This here's some orthopedic shoemaking in it's finest :)
The furthest shoe has a plastic counter and a composite (whatever that means) toe cap. The toe cap has varying layers of carbon fibre and god-knows-what-fibres and they've been laminated on the last with resin, obviously to give extra protection to the toes. The only things I've done here are the heel counters, the insoles, the steel amputation spring below and the whitish rubber protection on the toe caps.

Here's the pair ready and lasted. They're actually derby shoes, but have a shield of somesort over the laces. I don't exactly know why, as the design and patterns are not mine. I just last them.
And a pair of magnificient lasting pliers from Minke, made in deutschland.

And the mockups I'm getting ready soon. I wanted to show this unattractive view of the difficulties one has to face when sewing a zipper on a knee high boot.

A great weekend to you all!

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!