Friday 24 December 2010

European shoe production 1930's way





Glued by hand on wooden lasts, onto the racks and into the Flash Gordon style vulcanising chamber for the bonding process which is one hour of cooking at 130 deg. The old way. The best way.

Quality control at one of our European factories





These photos were taken whilst visiting one of producers in Europe. Very old fashioned, hand made conveyor line and built on hand cut wooden lasts. Very agreeable, with a fine eye on detail. Yet another reliable producer we have located allowing a larger range of product to our customers.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

El Ganso in El Courte Ingles



See these photos of the new Courte Ingles stand in Madrid. As you see the brand is nestled nicely between Levis and Pepe Jeans. More Courte Ingles stores plan to open El Ganso departments in the near future.

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Satisfied Greek customer


Pavlos from Greece sent me this photo of Tigra Tartan bought from the El Ganso shop in Barcelona. We have been working on Jeremy Stanford for El Ganso the last 5 or 6 years coming up with interesting colour combinations, using a variety of fabrics and overseeing all aspects of production. I hope you like these as much as Pavlos.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

New factory/New ideas

These basic models will need to have changes made to the fabric uppers, the soles however show great potential with the toe caps which many customers ask for.

Sunday 14 November 2010

Sunday 7 November 2010

This is the time of year in Hungary for pig killing

That means sausage, bacon and enough meat to last a Hungarian family through the winter, it also means a very early start in the morning and a fairly brutal technique with the sledge hammer when piggy is not looking.

Made in Europe-Classic Tigra Shoe

These are the ladies who handle the stitching of a large part of our shoe orders. Here I am checking the production as the shoes come out of the vulcanising chamber just before being wrapped in tissue paper and boxed up for shipment to Spain. This supplier is really very reliable.

Thursday 7 October 2010

Tezla shoes produced this simple canvas print range for Tisza.


Tisza was the original shoe available in Hungary in the 70's and 80's, we recreated and updated the model with 5 colour prints for men and women.

PLIMSOLL shoes soon to be available in Belgrade

Following a recent visit to Belgrade I was introduced to the fashion buyer of the very cool, retail and restaurant space called SUPERMARKET. It may be that within a few weeks PLIMSOLL will be available in a range of 5 or 6 colours.

Friday 24 September 2010

Seersucker beach shoe


This seersucker beach shoe worked out well for our customer El Ganso. I gave a pair to an old friend and he recently sent us a photo of him wearing them in Florence. Hope you like them.

Friday 17 September 2010

Hot Rod Fiat 500

This was taken a couple of summers ago when Zsuzsi and I went to visit a shoe factory in Hungary to collect new samples for PLIMSOLL. Whatever this guy had done to this Fita 500 worked for us.

Saturday 11 September 2010

Hot press made shoes-the old way





This is the factory handling some of our pressed shoe range-PLIMSOLL, RED SOLE and models for You Must Create.

It is a bit technical but you will see the 'last' collection of sizes behind and the jaws of the hot press which compresses the natural rubber and details the outer of the shoe. We were lucky enough to get made up an insert which shows the name PLIMSOLL on the underside.