Higher Heels v.s. Make Do And Mend!

High Heels from Chau Har Lee, one of P&M's shoemaking tutor

What happens to fashion in recession period? We got to know from an interesting radio forecast from BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour that some women tend to wear even higher heels and finer lingerie (starting from the 18th min), while we also know from our increasing course demands that people tend to do much more “do it yourself and make it yourself”. Listen to the radio here, or learn more about the “Make Do And Mend” movement here.

In our shoemaking and corsetry classes, people have been encouraged to try their hand at making their own glamorous creations rather than buying expensive items off the shelf that these days are all too often simply imported from the far east.

The student below, has recycled her old red leather handbag into a pair of shoes.

recycling an old leather bag into shoes

make do and mend!

Visit Prescott & Mackay’s website for more information about do it yourself and make it yourself!  For students who prefer higher heels, we are going to launch new collections of the shoe lasts in the coming months.

Chau’s shoe designs for Selfridges and Camper

Having been a tutor at Prescott & Mackay for many years, Chau Har Lee has embraced a new stage in her life as a footwear designer. Her graduate collection at Royal College of Arts is now in Selfridges’ Shoe Galleries, which has 55,000 shoes in stock and 4,000 shoes on display.

 
The Evening Standard compared Chau to Jimmy Choo, putting her right in the spotlight.  This year has already been a very busy one for her:  after receiving NEWGEN sponsorship, Chau had her collections to show at London Fashion Week (LFW) in September 2010 as one of the 21 of London’s brightest emerging fashion design talents. 

Chau Har Lee in Selfridges Shoe Galleries. Source: Evening Standard

People might have seen quite a few high heels in Chau’s signature  sculptural, lasercut design, but we particularly love this flat one (pictured below) that she did for Camper’s workshop.

“This shoe is made up of three interconnecting parts: the uppers, made up of two pattern pieces, moulded to shape and attached to the sole with a few stitches, the opening cut out of the middle becomes the backstrap. The foot bed slots into the sole and moulds to the wearer’s foot providing support for the arch. The sole shape provides protection where the foot has most contact with the ground. All 3 parts can be made of different materials and interchanged as required without the need for adhesives. All the pattern pieces tessellate ensuring minimum waste of materials,” says Chau.

Chau's Natural Shoe in Camper's workshop

Chau’s students at Prescott & Mackay describe her as a down to earth, calm and very hard-working tutor.  We all feel proud of Chau and wish her a splendid future on the path of shoe design. If you are ever a student of Chau for shoemaking at Prescott & Mackay, leave your comments and show her your support!

Chau in shoemaking class with student

    
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Want to get a closer look at her designs? Check the links below:

Chau Down This from Style Bubble
Interview to Chau Har Lee from Prescott & Mackay

Last week of the Shoemaking Evening Course

Caterina is in her final week of the Shoemaking Evening Course.  See if she finishes her shoes and how they look.

Week 10

Sadly, today it’s going to be the last evening class.

I am looking forward to finishing my blue shoes and I’m running across London to reach the Prescott & Mackay workshop in Warren street.

Everybody is already working like busy bees to finish what they started and the atmosphere is great! Probably everybody will finish the shoes which is great news!

I still have to apply the stiffener , last the shoes, lay the cork, stick the soles… I’m pretty sure I will not be able to make the socks too…
Luckily I love lasting and I am pretty fast at it. The time went by really quickly today and it’s already 9pm but Chau is very patient and stayed a bit longer to allow us to glue our soles down. I will make the socks for my shoes at home.

I have to say I’m not a beginner and my project was a bit more complicated because of the piping and the bagged lining…plus I haven’t make a mock-up and I’m a perfectionist… but I’m so glad to see that students who attended the evening course and were making shoes for their first time managed to finish their own project and in such a brilliant way!

Jiyoung for example, look at her wonderful patent court shoes! She was so excited when she tried them on…

So, I highly recommend to every shoe-enthusiast or shoe-freak curious to attend this course to achieve a really good result and receive the ABC of shoe-making. Thanks again to Chau Har Lee, brilliant tutor who followed everybody in a constant one to one approach.

I’ll see you all at Black Truffle in Broadway Market (I will be probably wearing my blue shoes)

Check out these photos of the rest of the class and their shoes.

Links:
Evening Course diary week 1,  week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8,  week 9, and week 10

Shoemaking Evening Course, Week 9

Caterina is on the penultimate week of the Shoemaking Evening Course at Prescott & Mackay this week. Her shoes are coming together and you can feel the excitement in the air at Warren Street.

Week 9

Last week we didn’t have the class so today I’m really looking forward to going across London after work to the Prescott & Mackay studio for our 9th class.

We are all so excited because all of our shoes are almost finished and honestly we better crack on working because this is the second last lesson of our evening course…

Today everything is about the most important part of the lasting process for me: the lining.. you see, if you last the lining not in a smooth and almost flawless way your upper will appear all wobbly… so first lasting pincers and tacks, then trim down the excess and then finally comes the glue. Let it dry while you start to last the second shoe…that’s the plan. When you last the second shoe you have to make sure that your pair looks pretty much alike…

After three attempts my lining seems alright and I decide to glue it down.

I can’t believe I had the time to apply the toe puffs too…There wasn’t much time left in the class and I still have a few things to do next week, deciding if I want to use a stiffener for the heel of my shoes and eventually apply it, lasting the uppers, making the socks…

I’m looking forward to seeing my project finished next week, I hope.

Links:
Evening Course diary week 1, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, and week 10

Shoemaking Evening Course, Week 8

It is Week 8 and Caterina is has only 2 Weeks left to finish her shoes on the Prescott & Mackay Shoemaking Evening Course. See what she got up to below.

Week 8

Last week I sewed together my uppers with the linings…this week I have to check if what I have done actually works! So here I am again, 6pm close the shop and run to Warren Street to the P&M studio…

It works! Now I need to apply some rubber solution all around and stick the topline tape on it to reinforce the topline…done!

As the other students in the workshop I’m really happy with the result of my efforts. Today I want to start to pull at least one of the shoes into the last and this is actually what I will do next.

I placed it onto the last using tacks, and got the positioning right so that they looked good from the top. I then began to tack down the lining, the first stage of the lasting process.

The time runs out so quickly, that all of us today tried to ignore Chau when she told us that it was already 9 o’clock! We wanted to go on working…
Links:
Evening Course diary week 1, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, and week 10

Caterina on the Shoemaking Evening Course, week 4

Caterina the manager of  Black Truffle, Broadway Market,  is giving us a weekly update on her experiences of the shoe making evening course at Prescott & Mackay.  She is on Week 4 now, see what she is up to.

Week 4

Finally it’s Thursday again and I’m looking forward attending the shoemaking evening class with Chau.

At work, my colleague Emily, asked me if I had chosen the materials to make my shoes with, and I realized that I hadn’t thought about it at all!

Thank God I live really close to the shop so I decided that on my lunch break I would go home to source something…well, I found a scrap of amazing blue leather and it’s been love at first sight, I will probably use  some vintage fabric for the binding and lining.

After closing the shop I ran to take the tube and join the class at Prescott & Mackay and finish making my patterns.  Yes! I managed to finish all the patterns and I could start to cut the pieces needed for the upper.

The class was great fun, everyone was really excited about their materials and getting started on the shoemaking.  We all brought in nibbles and had a cheese and chutney evening.  The atmosphere was great.

I had almost forgotten the sensation of making something from scratch in a workshop, it is a kind of magic!

All the pieces of my upper are now ready and I’m really happy about the leather I’ve chosen.  I feel inspired again!

Links:
Evening Course diary week 1, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, and week 10

Shoemaking Evening Course, Week 3

Here is Caterina’s experience of Week 3 on the Shoemaking Evening Course at Prescott & Mackay.
Week 3

I missed the 2nd week so I needed to catch up a lot this time. Again, I ran across London and got straight down to work once I arrived.

Today I started my patterns, finally, meaning that my design has been chosen.  I am very excited about this.  I have cut them out on Pattern Cutting Paper and am looking forward to next week and finishing my patterns and starting to cut some backing or why not, clicking some leather!

The good thing about this course is that everyone, beginners or not, has the possibility of achieving a great outcome, Chau goes around the tables and supports us one by one, checking we are following properly!

The Prescott & Mackay School of Fashion and Accessory Design is located below Black Truffle at 52 Warren Street, and its principal Melissa Needham, is also co-owner of the two Black Truffle stores.  Prescott and Mackay offers short courses in Shoemaking, Bag Making, Corsetry, Millinery and Tutu Making as well as Private Tuition and Footwear seminars.  Across all the disciplines there are courses suited for absolute beginners to those who want something more advanced.

Follow Caterina’s journey here each week and maybe you can think about doing a course yourself.

Links:
Evening Course diary week 1, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, and week 10

Shoemaking Evening Course, Week 1

Caterina, the manager of Black Truffle in Broadway Market, is taking a Shoemaking Evening Course at Prescott & Mackay. She has studied Shoe Design and wants to have a career as a shoe designer. She will be writing about her experiences here each week.

Week 1

” After taking on the job as the manager of Black Truffle, Broadway Market, I haven’t had the time to dedicate myself to this creative side of me so I’ve decided to attend the evening class at P&M with Super Chau (that’s how I call Chau Har Lee, amazing designer/tutor) to reconnect with lasts, masking tape, dividers and lasting pincers.

After closing the shop last Thursday it was time to run across London to attend the first class. It has been even more interesting than I was expecting because I immediately learnt something: a different method of taping the last (that’s what you do when you need to make the patterns of your design).

It’s been such a long time without hands on experience of making shoes that I almost forgot the great feeling of it. Honestly, I struggled deciding what to draw on the last.
I had such a great time that the end of the lesson came veeeeery quickly and I am a bit sad cause I will miss the next lesson, but I am sure I will catch up on the 3rd one”

The Prescott & Mackay School of Fashion and Accessory Design is located below Black Truffle at 52 Warren Street, and its principal Melissa Needham, is also co-owner of the two Black Truffle stores. Prescott and Mackay offer short courses in Shoemaking, Bag Making, Corsetry, Millinery and Tutu Making as well as Private Tuition and Footwear seminars. Across all the disciplines there are courses suited for absolute beginners to those who want something more advanced.

Follow Caterina’s journey here each week and maybe you can think about doing a course yourself.

Links:
Evening Course diary week 1, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, and week 10

Footwear Design – Three Week Professional Development Course

We have our second Three Week Professional Development Footwear Design course coming up in March. One of our students, Rachael Gray has written about her experiences for you to see what the week would be like for you.

“The three weeks I spent on the Professional Development course were intense, artistic, and eye-opening. Under the direction of Eelko Moorer, my fellow students and I began with a week of research that focused our design for the remainder of the course. In order to understand the field of footwear a little better we visited the only operating shoe factory in England.

We soon thereafter found ourselves flying to Italy to attend Lineapelle, the footwear trade fair in Bologna. I could go on and on about the fair (and our fabulous week in Italy), but you have to be there to really understand how amazing it is. I will simply say that it was incredibly exciting getting an insider’s view of the Italian footwear industry, which is so respected for its stylistic and technical finesse.

Upon our return to London, we hit the ground running for a week of shoemaking, which turned out to be one of my favourite aspects of shoe design. There is nothing so satisfying as seeing your design all the way through from sketch to reality. It was a challenging task, made manageable by the excellent tutelage of Chau Har Lee and Melissa Needham, both of whom patiently guided us through that last week in the workshop.

At the end of the course I came home with a pair of shoes I am proud to say I made. I have a sketchbook full of ideas (some good, some bad) and an understanding of what is involved in the construction of shoes. Without this glimpse into the workings of the industry, attending a trade fair as a new designer would have been incredibly overwhelming. But I have a very good idea of what to expect from events such as Lineapelle, now.

Speaking as someone who wanted an overview of the industry, but could not commit to a university’s two year-long course, the Professional Development course turned out to be an excellent, balanced introduction to the world of footwear.”

Thanks so much Rachael, for telling us all about your Three Week Course.

Now remember, you only have till Monday 8^th Feb, to book onto the course in March.

Click here to see all the details and book.