Tuesday, 27 April 2010

drive to the lake




Zsuzsi Stanford drives the final 3km to the weekend house for her father. Here is one from Csiszta Puszta baths just along the road from the lake.

Balaton house



Balaton House





Weekend house

Just back from a few days at the Kishegy house on the southern side of lake Balaton. As you can see there is a fair amount of tree cutting, garden clearing to do. I don't even want to go beyond dreaming of the alterations we could do to the little house. Putting in a well should be the first major job. With views of the lake and a long arc of sun crossing the property it certainly has good potential.

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Fresh ideas




Thinking to put this model into production. We ran it some years ago without much success. I still believe in it as a good selling model with leather linings and the funky suede patches. What do you think?



Recently bought this '59 Velocette Venom in a sorry state of repair. Spent some time working on the engine and gearbox and general appearance. Now it is running well and starting to look how it should. Fast too. See the before and after photos. I have enough parts to build another whole bike in the future.

Vintage linen shoes


These vintage Hungarian linen shoes worked out very well. They will be sold as a limited edition collection. Fabric was sourced through Kath at Parna. www.parna.co.uk. She finds great vintage linens and hemp fabrics around Europe.


Monday, 19 April 2010

Moto Guzzi




See the bike I like to use for these european shoe factory visits. Solid Italian wheels for the job.

Stitching facility




Received the stitched shoe uppers from the Hungarian factory handling some of the new collection for El Ganso in Spain. The factory manager has shown some interesting alternative soles we may use in the near future.

shoes in production for El Ganso-Spain


Just returned from the Slovak factories which is a three hour motorcycle ride from Budapest north over the border. Spent time in the sampling department getting a workable shoe collection for the Spanish brand El Ganso. I am working some new fabrics and colours into the current range.

Have made contact with Polish producers who offer vulcanised shoes in a similar style to what we currently offer.