Wenzhou handmade leather shoes

 Wenzhou handmade leather shoes

Opal Crocodile

The leather shoe manufacturing industry in Wenzhou has a hundred-year history, and the stitching process reflects the historical changes in the development of modern Wenzhou and even Chinese shoe making. The most important aspect of a pair of top quality handmade shoes is the hand-stitching process. In Wenzhou, a father and son team of "artisans" have passed on the Wenzhou shoe stitching technique, giving the craft an "intangible heritage" label and continuing the story of the craftsmen behind Wenzhou shoes.

Keeping the art: perfecting the art of sewing shoes in Wenzhou

The Opal Crocodile handmade shoes studio is located on the ground floor of the Murdoch district in the city. The founder, Chen Wenhua, is a national-level footwear designer and a non-genetic inheritor of the Wenzhou stitching technique.

My master makes handmade shoes, my master grandfather makes handmade shoes, and when I come here, it is considered the third generation." Chen Wenhua has been learning his craft at the age of 15 for 40 years. During that time he has run businesses, but they have all been related to leather shoes. He admits that the work he loves most is making shoes, and that he lives by his "craft".

Wenzhou has a long history of hand-made shoes. According to Chen Wenhua's recollection, when he was learning his craft, his master often mentioned that there were many leather shoe workshops in the area around Fuqian Street in downtown Wenzhou in the early days of the liberation.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the hand-made shoe shops on Jiefang North Road and around Bailifang became famous throughout the country, and later on there were many shoe factories around Shuixin in the city. The rise of Wenzhou shoes in the tide of reform and opening up had much to do with the presence of a group of highly skilled local hand-made shoemakers.

In the past few years, Chen Wenhua has been dedicated to excavating and organizing the "old crafts" of the old generation of artisans, collecting and supplementing written materials on Wenzhou's handmade leather shoe stitching techniques, and constantly improving the process of making Wenzhou's handmade leather shoes.

"I have met many old generation craftsmen, and their 'art-keeping' spirit has given me the motivation to continue being an artisan." Chen Wenhua says his insistence on making handmade shoes has been met with concern by the older generation of craftspeople. For example, a shoemaking teacher in Shanghai wrote him the secret recipe for wax making; an 83-year-old shoemaker's grandmother in Wenzhou came to the shop and taught him how to "rub the mane"; another teacher, who had just been discharged from hospital, sent him a piece of "dog chain skin" to teach him the leather making process. All these have benefited him greatly.

Chen Wenhua wants to invite more old artists to become regular guests and advisors to the workshop, and to put together a book with tutorials on hand-made leather shoes in Wenzhou.

Heritage: making handmade leather shoes "hip"

"Pairing holes, threading, pulling strings, the pair of stitches on each pair of shoes must be tight and orderly." Chen Wenhua's son, Chen Fang, demonstrates hand stitching to a trainee. He studied shoemaking at university and inherited his father's craft. He now works as a teacher at Wenzhou Vocational Secondary School of Shoe Leather and spends his weekends helping his father in the workshop.

Chen Fang has been learning to make shoes by hand for eight years, and he still remembers the first day he learned the craft, when he cut his fingertips. "I didn't like making shoes before, but now the more I do it, the more I taste it!" His goal is to make the workshop like those well-known family workshops in Italy.

"These leather shoes were custom-made at the request of a lawyer who makes three pairs of handmade shoes in our studio every year." Chen Fang told the reporter that the stitching of the leather upper of this pair of shoes requires a high level of pick stitching technique, which is usually used in high-end handmade shoes abroad.

Nowadays, there are two main groups of customers for handmade shoes, one is young people who are getting married and engaged, the women customize 2 pairs of handmade leather shoes for the groomsmen, which is gradually becoming a fashionable choice; the other consumer group is middle-aged consumers with a successful career, who have higher dress requirements and admire clothing customization and leather shoe customization.

"Craftsmanship needs to be passed down, but the style of leather shoes cannot stick to the rules, handmade leather shoes can also be very fashionable." Chen Fang has his own ideas about handmade shoes: "I hope that the handmade shoes I make are trendy shoes that young people like!"

Wish: To build a museum of handmade leather shoe skills

The most crucial aspect of handmade leather shoes is the hand-stitching process. The Wenzhou stitching technique is characterised by the use of waxed 12-strand hemp ropes to slot and chamfer the cowhide extensions and then to stitch the shoes and leather extensions in a smart and orderly manner. Six strands of hemp ropes are then used to sew the cowhide outsole to the shoe in a close and orderly manner with a "pair of stitches", and finally, the heel is fitted, polished and waxed, a traditional shoemaking technique unique to Wenzhou's folk artisans.

"This book is a guide to making handmade leather shoes abroad, a complete record of the entire process." According to Chen Wenhua, a pair of handmade shoes is divided into upper hand, lower hand and matching sole processes, more than a hundred processes, and there are dozens of tools used.

The tools of shoemaking are also gradually disappearing, and a phial knife like this one is rarely made in China." Chen Wenhua took out a hand phi knife that he used himself, and the leather cover of the handle was sewn by hand according to his usage habits. "This blade and the angle of the sharp edge, is when the Wenzhou shoemaker and knife master based on practical experience after continuous adjustment obtained, condensed this industry hand craftsmen's experience."

In order to pass on the shoe making tools such as the knife and the shoe drill, Chen Wenhua started to run for the "heritage" of the one surviving "knife beater" shop in Wenzhou last year, helping the trade to survive. "The craft chain of handmade leather shoes cannot be broken!"

In the past few years, father and son have been visiting the old generation of craftsmen and collecting folk objects. Their greatest wish is to build the first folk museum of Wenzhou's handmade leather shoes, so that more people can know the story behind Wenzhou's leather shoes.