Reflections from an interview with a bespoke shoemaker

 

So often, when asking someone about their job, you hear about how busy, difficult or frustrating their job is but one of the things that most excited me about this assignment was the invitation to interview someone who loves what they do. My approach to the task was relatively straight forward but I certainly didn’t expect it to become so last minute. One thing that became apparent towards the end was how fast the turn-around was going to have to be to have a finished product worthy of even submitting. In thinking about the process it might even have been wiser to start by choosing a field and doing my own research and not relying on other people’s connections to get me in the door. There were three times where I thought I had an interview subject and they turned me down after already saying yes to an interview.

What instantly struck me about José was not only his passion for his job but also a humble authenticity. He would be the first to comment on his faults or an imperfection in a piece he had worked on. As I was asking him the questions I had planned, simple questions, “Is there a bit of a renaissance of bespoke fashion in Melbourne?” I started cottoning on to a deeper story, somehow José had gone from a nine to five desk job to a bespoke cobbler working downstairs in what feels like a basement and loving every moment of it. Something I realised whilst talking to José was just how much time it takes to make one pair of shoes. His process and focus are extraordinary and I was surprised that he was only working on one pair of shoes at the time of my visit. I almost began to wonder how he earns a living and yet he didn’t seem to want to work on anything else except his shoes.

The materiality is interesting, like what I discussed in project brief two the physicality of the shoes (like physical media) is so intrinsically linked to the way in which we interact with it. The process of designing them, sowing the pieces together, slicing the leather. There is something tactile and authentic in the act of creating with your hands. I think often in industries the process of innovation is void of reflection. Reflection of not only what could be improved in a previously existing thing but what makes the original thing great. No matter how extensive and ordered our iTunes libraries, it’s nowhere near as satisfying as an alphabetised vinyl archive and I think the way we interact with things, small insignificant things makes a huge difference. In my second project brief I explored materiality in the context of changing technology and though I didn’t directly quote his work, Giovan Francesco Lanzara’s book on materiality probably had the most prolific role in inspiring my thoughts. He states that, “The thinkable functionalities to be pursued and the forms to be designed are not independent from the potential hidden in the materials available for molding. A paper chair will not sustain your weight, your name cannot be written on water, an aircraft cannot be made of wood[…]We must therefore learn to think of matter as a dynamic generator of materials waiting to be actualized and trans- formed by design.” What I love about the way he articulates the sentence is the way in which he perfectly describes the affordances of each material what I then wonder is, what does the new technological advances mean for these affordances? What can we no longer do? What was critical in not only our interactions on a basic level but also in a “social context” as he puts it? How much of our unique imprint, our personality (as José would say) have we lost in fashion because of the advancements made by technology and manufacturing? How much of our self-expression as creatives is hindered by our modern process?

I stumbled across Mary Blewett’s article in the Journal of Social History about the ‘artisan tradition’ of shoemaking, almost accidentally as I was doing research on materiality. Interesting that those exact words are used on José’s business card. In her article, Blewett spends a good deal of time reflecting on gender attitudes but early in the piece makes a fascinating statement, “The pre-industrial phase of New England shoe production was a golden age of artisan life, and shoemakers were central to the rise of worker protest against early industrial capitalism.” This was the sense I got from talking to José, when asked about the significance of shoemaking today, his reasons were very much about creativity and uniqueness in stark contrast to large corporations mass producing soulless products in Asia. Of course, that doesn’t mean someone didn’t take pride in the design of those products and I think it’s very easy when listening to José to get caught up in the emotion of the craft and the overwhelming sense of beauty in the material.

I started thinking about filmmaking and how many actual ‘hands on’ practises still exist. Is there something that we have lost in cutting in the box. One of the most obvious examples of craft being demanded above technical perfection is the incessant practical vs digital effects debate. A similar argument is put forward that there is a tangibility to practical effects and, naturally, a falsity or a sort of uncanny fake-ness to digital visual effects. The love and care that went into building and crafting the miniatures that flash by the frame for seconds or painting a matte painting with an actual brush. I think this is almost entirely what José was attempting to suggest, that there’s something more real about a real paint brush on Perspex than a tool in After Effects, there’s something real about selecting a leather and fitting it to the customer than just buying a shoe that’s already made.

As you can imagine, there isn’t a whole lot of academic writing on cobblers however, as I started to connect the dots between such an obscure occupation and their identity as an artisan or craftsperson. Gerald Porter’s journal article suggests that in almost every song a character is identified by their occupation. His article is an interesting exploration of cobblers and music, interestingly a thread echoed by José as I interviewed him; he talked about how his heritage (more specifically his memory or El Salvadorian artisans and the music of El Salvador) links to his practise. He even mentioned how he dances whilst creating his shoes. There seems to be not just a renaissance in artisan shoemaking but also a renaissance in a desire for authenticity in almost every creative discipline. Music artists similarly often record acoustic versions of songs without any of the electronic additions we’re familiar with in modern popular music. Of course, this music also goes through a computer, it’s not as if the defining factor is the lack of machines in the process, it’s the lack of decoration, the lack of perfection, even. There’s a link between identity, authenticity and craft that I think it becomes an interesting relationship. When José talks about personality he’s talking about the uniquity of someone using their hands to express themselves. Where the identity of the creative provides their own unique signature and style, the authenticity of the work is what communicates that aspect of them; something that isn’t authentic, that isn’t true to the artist and can’t speak to their heritage and their passion. Finally, the craft, the actual skill in making the thing is what draws people to the work itself.

For my final project, I would love to find where these three facets intersect with my own practise, what my identity as a creative is and how it could be inscribed on my work through authenticity. The truth is I’m entirely unsure of what that is. I think my interview with José taught me that no idea is truly realised until you interrogate it from an angle you weren’t expecting. When I interviewed José I was finding myself constantly adjusting my questions to fit something I was noticing about him, about his space, about his process. And I left with a very different idea of him than I would have had purely from asking the questions I was writing in class. When I arrived, I was so much more interested in understanding shoemaking and why it’s important and the craft of it, that I almost missed the person behind the craft.

Blewett, Mary H. “Work, Gender and the Artisan Tradition in New England Shoemaking, 1780-1860.” Journal of Social History, vol. 17, no. 2, 1983, pp. 221–248.

Porter, Gerald. “Cobblers All: Occupation as Identity and Cultural Message.” Folk Music Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, 1995, pp. 43–61.

Lanzara, Giovan Francesco. “Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World Edited by Paul M. Leonardi, Bonnie A. Nardi, and Jannis Kallinikos (Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 384 Pp. $34.00. (paperback). (ISBN: 978‐0199664061.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 66.12 (2015): 2717-720. Web.