In January 2016 I completed a five week course in shoe design, making and protyping. The course took place in Germany and the Netherlands. We began by studying fashion in Berlin, visiting some of today's most influential fashion labels. We then studyied car design in Stuttgart, visiting factories and musuems of BMW, Mercedes Benz, and Porsche. After that, we went to Waaljick, Netherlands to prepare our own leather and make our shoes. We worked with a leather tannery called Stahl to prepare leather for our shoes, and then we worked with a shoe design and innovation school called SLEM to craft our shoes. We were guided by some of the industries top professionals including Nicoline Van Enter. Van Enter is an internationall renowned trend forcaster who has advised top companies such as Timberland. At our final critique we were joined by Marloes ten Bhömer, one of the top contempory shoe designers in the world.
This is the process of how I constructed an orthopaedic high heel that responds to movement and light. The entire process was done by hand.
Crafting the heels. To make the heels I glued pieces of cork on top of each other and sanded them to fit the arch of my foot. The feels are orthopaedic and customized to my problem flat feet. Remarkably, the shoes are comfrtable to wear, and I have never been able to wear heels before. It was a very empowering process to have complete control over how my foot fits inside a shoe.
Cutting the leather tongue of the shoe. I prepared this leather at Stahl by pressing an alminum sheet and a textured plate onto this piece.
Assebmling the shoe. After cutting out the leather and attaching the heel to the sole, I stiched the leather onto the sole.
