The death of Palmroth

(Edit on 24.01.2013: Reader please note that this article is from 2012. And fortunately since then Palmroth has started anew: www.palmrothoriginal.com . You should also check out their facebook pages. There are interesting comments by the Palmroth family below the post. A Definite read.)

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I know the title is dramatic, and by all means I don't mean any actual human being. I'm talking about the finnish shoe brand: Pertti Palmroth.
My relationship with this brand is shallow and superficial to say the least. And the recent bankruptcy of Hamken Oy (the company's name) isn't in itself a melancholic event. What saddens me is that this is only one of the signs of a sure downfall of Finland's once glorious shoe industry. It was never internationally glorious, but served it's purpose as the people's choice when there still was no import, and all of those millions of shoes were made just for two nations: Finland and Russia.
Now, for the reasons why the finnish shoe industry has plummeted during the last decades, there's not an easy answer. And frankly, how on earth should I know? All I have are the few small details of what I've heard or seen. So the death of this company shows just the reality of what's going on with the industry.

After the studies last week, I visited the silent factory last wednesday evening. Like I said, I've no nostalgy or emotional ties with this brand. But stepping into the factory and seeing the silent and still space filled with machines, equipment, parts and lasts, made me realize that that place had seen some busy times. For decades people have run across those floors, busy with producing millions of shoes worn by people across the land. The generations have changed, old masters teaching snot nosed kids how to start with their new summer job. There's been good times, and bad ones. There's been families forming and breaking. People dreaming of that something special for their future. Until...

...It all ends.

And a couple of vultures land on the carrion

hoping for a cheap and easy snack:

We're at the front of Pertti Palmroth's factory. The lights are lit only because we're coming to meet the representative.

A general view of a part of the hall. It's quite tidy, I must say!
At the front is the logo stamping machinist's desk. To the right, sewing machines with yellow hoods on them.

In a shoe factory, the amount of required component's is huge. This is actually a small shelf filled with cutting patterns made of steel.

Here's where all the logos to your Palmroth's shoe insoles came from. You can see the metal folio running across the machine on the top of the picture.

Here's the actual logo stamp, sitting alone next to the machine.

Hmmm... I think I've seen this model somewhere. The working just stopped and someone dropped this pair out of his hands and went home.

It's leather! Or is it? I think Palmroth's shoes were somewhat famous for their use of synthetic materials. Or infamous, depending on the view point.

This beauty had been stowed away between the shelves. A prototype?
"01"

Even though I was never a big fan of their products, I must take off my hat and bow to Pertti Palmroth for contributing to the finnish shoe industry, and sharing his passion for the rest of us to enjoy.

Rest in peace.

Making Ballerinas - Part 6 Sewing

With sewing, I wanted to take an old fashioned approach: a thin thread (60) and a thin needle (90), and do a extremely short stitch of about 1mm in length. This kind of stitching was common in shoes in the beginning of the 20th century, and if you ever visit a shoe-museum (there's one in Tampere, Finland called Vapriikki) check the stitching in old shoes, for a craftsman they're absolutely marvellous! One might think that "what the hell, it's only stitching, who cares?" But stitching is actually one of the most important aspects when making shoes: not only does it define the whole aesthetics of the shoe but has a strong importance even on the durability: dress shoes tend to have a thin and usually only one row of stitching. The heavy work shoe can have a thick thread with possibly up to four parallel rows.

An example of the change in the history of stitching shoes: left is a men's boot from early 20th century, and on the right a similar article from the 21st century. See the difference?

Ok, lets get back to business:

The leather edges have to be made thin wherever needed, this is called skiving. Skiving is done for different reasons, of which the two most common are; having different kind of seams and edges and to make the edges of the leathers that go under other leather layers to be non-visible to the surface. This is a skiving machine with a rotating blade, and I can make a more detailed post of this if anyone fancies that.

Here's a closeup of a skived piece, where you can see that the flesh side is close to it's normal thickness on the other side of the skive and the edge is almost 0mm thick. This is a folded edge skiving. See below for more info :)

Skiving at it's most traditional: with a curved knife. I skived only a thin line from the edge because it was my first time skiving alcantara and it doesn't work like leather so I had to be careful.

Skiving can also be done with a grinding machine, though only for the things hidden between the lining and uppers. You can see the difference in these side-stiffeners: the left one hasn't been skived.

A non-flexible and incredibly thin folding thread is glued 6mm away from the edge and necessary cuts  are made to make the folding easier as seen on the right piece. The edge is folded with contact glue underneath the leather on the left piece.

I folded the alcantara pieces too, to get as neat a look as possible.

And there you have it, all the pieces folded and ready for sewing! Well, no folding for the lining though ;)

And here's what a shoemakers best friend looks like. It takes alot of sewing before one gets friendly with  basically any kind of machine, and sowing machines are especially quirky.

It has a kind of a pole whereon it's easy to sew shoe uppers, since they're quite small and have
more three dimentional shapes.

Once all the sewing is done, I glue the side-stiffeners to the lining.

The surplus lining is cut away with scissors...

...And here's what you end up looking from the other side. Then the lining edges are painted black so that they won't "jump out".

And the uppers are ready to be lasted!

And a finishing touch is the bows. Here you can see the old fashioned small stitching , and my lack of experience with  both the particular sewing machine and the stitching.

Next up is lasting!