In Their Shoes

In this episode, Katie chats with fellow Cordwainer and judge for the annual Cordwainer Footwear Awards, Atalanta Weller. Atalanta won the British Fashion Councils' coveted NEWGEN competition in 2010. NEWGEN is the most established designer development scheme globally and designers are identified by their creativity, strong design aesthetic, and point of difference.

Atalanta’s ground-breaking sculptural shoes now form part of the V&A’s permanent collection and are regularly exhibited internationally. Listen as they discuss her background and early fashion influences and how she discovered footwear.

Discover her career journey and hear how her initial placement at Clerks and training in Moulds helped her later push the boundaries of fashion with Henry Holland and then her own label. Atalanta’s work can be found in fashion and design press such as Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, ID, and Monocle magazine. Her shoes have a strong following from Siena Miller, Halle Berry to Jessie J and Lady Gaga.

They speak about the challenges and lessons learned from setting up your own label and famous collaborations (including with Barbie!) Learn how she goes about her own design process and the importance of sustainability and function within that. Listen as they share tips on how to transfer design skills across different mediums - from footwear to interiors to hobbyhorses!

They discuss the importance of being involved in the Cordwainers Company and the joy of supporting and giving back to the industry through teaching and mentoring as well as fitting in footwear around family life.

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In this episode, Katie chats to Michael James, Director of Sales and Development at Springline, England's only surviving shoe last maker. Michael is a master craftsman and has worked with many of the best designers, brands, and celebrities. Measuring feet and making lasts for the rich and famous, from our current King to Hagrid and the Gringotts Goblins out of Harry Potter to working with brands such as Dr Martins, Jeffery West, Churches, Vivien Westwood, Ted Baker, and Paul Smith to mention a few. His work spans both the bespoke and manufacturing side of footwear.

They discuss his journey into footwear from living in Northampton from an early age to starting on the Springline youth training scheme at 16 years as he was ‘good with his hands’, a company he has now been at for 40 years. Hear how he started on the factory floor and moved to the modeling room. How that in turn has changed over time.

Listen in as they discuss the process of last making, why it is an endangered trade, and hear how different types of wood are used for different lasts. Discover how Springline has remained healthy where other competitors have fallen by the wayside. How they have diversified their offering with different services from last making to design consultation and an international shoe-tree market. Their discussion turns to the challenges of sustainability, the need to do more, and also handing on the trade to the next generation.

Hear a tip-off about a forthcoming exhibition in the Northampton museum that Michael has been instrumental in pulling together. His love of handmade things, and his aspiration to take up pottery.

He offers insight into his working day and advice to the future talent of the footwear industry. He and Kaite discuss the positive impact of the Cordwainer Footwear Awards and how he personally looks back to footwear memorabilia of the past for inspiration and quality. Throughout it all shines his unassuming passion and love of a profession that has taken time to evolve.

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In this episode, Katie chats with Alexandra Fullerton, a freelance stylist, and writer, currently Fashion Director-at-large at Glamour UK. Alex has been known to declare that she prefers shoes to some people and founded #thedailyshoe on Instagram. Previously, Alex was Fashion Director at Stylist Magazine. Over her 20-year career, Alex has contributed to Grazia and international editions of Vogue and Harpers Bazar.

Her commercial clients have included Stella McCartney, Amazon, and Marks & Spencer. She has worked with photographers including David Bailey, Victor Demarchelier, Mary McCartney, Ranking, and Ella von Worth and regularly contributes to BBC Radio 4s Woman's Hour and You & Yours.

They discuss her early style influences and how she ended up walking away from her course at the London College of Fashion and learning the tools of her trade on the job. From working night shifts as the gig reviewer for a music magazine through her career to fashion director-at-large at Glamour UK to writing her first book and now teaching.

Alex’s first book How To Dress was published by Pavillion in June 2018 and became a bestseller in Amazon's fashion category and she now has a number of other projects on the go in her portfolio career.

Katie and Alex have a wide-ranging discussion focusing on the importance of sustainability in fashion and circular economies, as well as the joy of the perfect second-hand find. Listen as she offers advice to those starting out on their own path today and tips on how to style your own wardrobe. The importance of role models to the next generation and what inspires her. Do you have ‘the eye’ to be a stylist?

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Welcome to season 2 of the Cordwainers’ ‘In Their Shoes’ Podcast, in which you’ll be inspired by the brightest and best in the footwear industry. The range of participants is vast, from bespoke footwear and craft experts, to retailers, innovative entrepreneurs, and influencers. Join our host Katie Greenyer, Cordwainer and Creative Director of Pentland Brands, for refreshingly open and honest conversations allowing you to step into the shoes of the talent behind the brands.  What drives and inspires them? What challenges have they overcome and what does the future hold?

The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, whose members were originally the shoemakers of the City of London, is one of the City’s oldest livery companies. Today, we work philanthropically to promote the British footwear industry, supporting footwear design and entrepreneurship in both education and fashion, nurturing young talent, and promoting excellence via the annual ‘shoe Oscars’, the Cordwainers Footwear Awards

We’d love for you to continue with us on this journey of inspiration, innovation, design, and, of course, footwear.  So kick off your own and explore what it is like to walk in the shoes of those who have made them. Join us at cordwainers.org or follow us on Instagram @WorshipfulCordwainers.

Produced and Edited by Audio Coast

In this extended episode, Katie speaks to Ian Watson, CEO and driving force behind one of Britain’s most successful shoe brands, Hotter Shoes, in front of a live audience. As the UK’s largest specialist footwear brand Hotter Shoes sells over a million pairs of shoes a year, to more than 4 million customers around the world.

Ian is credited with having accelerated the company's digital growth and Hotter Shoes is now seen as a major player in the e-commerce space. By repositioning Hotter shoes as a digitally-led, direct to consumer, e-commerce platform, Ian has successfully navigated both the challenges of the Covid pandemic and the downturn in traditional bricks and mortar retail environments, helping to ensure the brands longevity, growth and investment opportunities.

Listen as they discuss his journey and how the drive to join the workplace saw him leave school at 16 and build solid hands-on experience in every role a business would need including sales, accounts and marketing. From the UK to Germany and back. Discover how his varied experience across the chemical, tool and private equity sector has given him a love of creating successful products that he has applied to the Footwear Industry. First at Startrite and now as CEO of Hotter Shoes and what his growing understanding of what he terms the ‘the dark arts of Footwear’.

Ian shares his top tips for footwear design students about the importance of including the customer and price point at the start of the design process. He discusses the importance of mentoring, ideas around brand and making comfort a positive enabler. And delves into the wider challenges in the footwear industry from supply chains to sustainability. A personal, entertaining and behind the scenes insight into the man behind the brand and lessons he has picked up along the way.

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In this episode, Katie speaks to Helen Kirkum, London based artist and designer and the inaugural winner of the Cordwainers Footwear Award in 2014. Helen has developed a unique formular learnt from manufacturing to deconstruct and reconstruct footwear utilising recycled and dead stock. She has the ability to tell the most incredible stories through her work and started her own studio in 2019.

Katie and Helen discuss what first inspired Helen’s journey into footwear and specifically attending the course at the University of Northampton, in the UK’s footwear manufacturing mecca. They discuss the opportunities Helen grasped with both hands from the Cordwainer Footwear Award to winning an internship at Adidas in Germany, exhibiting as part of the Sneakers Unboxed Exhibition at the Design Museum to launching her new bespoke range at London Fashion Week. She emphasis the importance each of these were in spurring her on to the next step and boosting confidence in her ideas for her brand.

Helen speaks passionately about the post-consumer waste in the industry and her drive to upcycle and be sustainable, both in designs and as a business. The importance of demonstrating and slower, smaller way of creating a brand, working with charities can still work. Listen to discover more about her design influences, planning what you are doing with your brand, knowledge sharing and top tips for budding students on how to network. Find out more about mentoring slots for young designers and downloadable workshops such as her sneaker sculptures.§

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In this episode Katie interviews Beatrix Ong, fellow Cordwainer and a footwear legend that has collaborated with some of the world’s most respected designers, brands and artists. She is best known for her sustainable and eco-focused practices within design, for which she has been awarded an MBE.

Step into the shoes of the sometimes author and judge of the Cordwainer Footwear Awards as she describes her personal journey from art and graphics into footwear. From wining a ‘terrifying’ magazine internship at Harpers Bazaar in New York to working with Jimmy Choo in his bespoke workshop helping produce shoes for the likes of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Later becoming Choo’s Creative Director aged just 22, helping take the brand from a small workshop to a global brand.

Katie and Beatrix talk about meeting the Queen, designing shops and the inspiration and detailing of an Ong creation. Hear how seeing the wastage in factories drove her to try to make sustainable shoes. Beatrix argues that often her low points have been the defining moments where she has taken time to ‘checked in’ with who she wants to be and her business to be. In 2002 she launched her eponymous shoe range which quickly garnered significant attention and landed her a place on the Independents newspapers Top 10 Leading Shoe Designers list, alongside Manolo Blahnik. Discover some of the challenges from running your own label to launching the company of x in 2019 – an eco-focused platform which merges design with social and environmental sustainability

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In this episode, Katie talks to Charlotte Olympia Dellal who built her own footwear brand in 2008, after studying at London College of Fashion. Charlotte Olympia’s products are famed for their spin on Hollywood glamour, a mantra that as a designer she lives and breathes. A fellow Cordwainer and judge of the Cordwainer Footwear Awards she has a sharp eye for detail and is an inspiration to fellow designers across the globe.

Bought up in a globetrotting family with a mother who was in fashion, Charlotte believes that your accessories and hairstyle can dress you up more than anything else. They discuss the drive and inspiration behind her brand mixing 40’s and 50’s glamour with a novelty twist, and the journey she took to get there including working in a fashion house in Paris and manufacturing her graduation collection in Brazil.

Charlotte offers insights into how she seeks to strike emotion with her creations, and the connection we all have with our own footwear. How many shoes do you think she has in her own personal archive?

Listen in to hear more about the opportunities and challenges of collaborations, from working with MAC to Barbie. Hear about her defining moments, opening her first store, and her hints and tips on how to grow and develop your brand.

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In this episode Katie speaks to Dominic Casey, fellow Cordwainer, master craftsman, teacher and bespoke shoemaker. Dominic has worked in the bespoke shoe trade for over 35 years. He originally trained as an orthopaedic shoemaker while simultaneously teaching the BA course on design and pattern making at Cordwainers college. He has his own workshop, worked in the ladies fashion industry and for 15 years taught on the footwear design MA at the Royal College of Art.

They discuss his style influences and journey from management consultant to become a craftsman at what turned out to be a renaissance time in the footwear industry.

They delve into the topics of hand techniques, home-made tools, patent making and the challenges of starting your own label. Find out Dominic’s views on the value add of the personal bespoke service, what customers expect and building a shoe wardrobe.

With light-hearted tales of a disastrous first commission and his venture with Steven Lowe teaching lastmaking at Lastmaker House you’ll never look at your feet the same way again.

The conversation ends with Dominic arguing the importance of reviving handmaking skills being lost from the industry such as ‘turn shoes’.

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In this episode Katie speaks to Caroline Groves, a fellow Cordwainer and master shoemaker, her brand is internationally renowned for luxury craftsmanship in shoes and accessories. Her work seeks to blur the lines between fashion, art and fantasy, often combining embroidery and needlepoint. She believes there are many ways to make a shoe and it is as much to do with the heart as the head.

Katie and Caroline discuss her craft influences and journey into the footwear industry. The challenges and lesson’s learnt along the way, from the importance of doing due diligence and the positive impact of PR. With wonderful personal anecdotes about the singular difference a good client can make to a bespoke business. Can you guess what happened to the polka dot shoes?

They touch on issues of supply and sustainability around leather, from vegetable tanning in the UK, to quality and traceability from Italy. She also highlights the importance of networking, mentoring and support between craft artisans. Listen to find out more about she gives back, by sharing her knowledge and working with the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust to support an apprenticeship in her own workshop.

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