Oct 2, 2012

My first online eBook and Tracey Neuls amazing shoe lasts


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My first online eBook and Tracey Neuls amazing shoe lasts



Finally I made my first eBook. Initially, It took me a lot of time to decide go for it and find the time for it, especially because I wanted to include a video too. Because I wanted it to be a very detailed and understandable guide. to show how to make a quick and accurate pattern for pumps with a heel of 5 cm idea to create it. My husband gave me the idea , Because he saw that people are interested and consult with me through my YouTube's channel. Thanks to this guide I have had ideas to write other tutorial books that I'm going to do, when I'll find the time in my busy schedule. This book is available for free at my new web site www.sk-shoes.com .




Bordo Shoes


Then came the fall to Israel,  if it can be called that, "there is a little breeze", which replaced the unbearable heat Therefore, I was able to show off my new shoes, which I made for myself for the fall collection. This model called "Bordo" it  is from my new collection.





 Designer talk


Today I want to talk about one designer shoes, which I love and which I discovered to my shame recently. This is a designer from London, I'm absolutely sure that everybody on the planet, except me  know her and her name is Tracey Neuls. She has two lines of shoes, one called by her name, another 29TN. Her shoes are always very concise, and at first glance it may seem simple. But this simplicity is, in my opinion, simply brilliant. She always finds a very interesting solution in design, joining upper with sole and heel. For example, just by painting toecap and heel, covering the sole and heel.










Source: flickr.com via Svetlana on Pinterest

 It's so simple and beautiful. She also has wonderfully beautiful heels that are an integral part of all shoes and almost major structural ornament of her shoes. Heels resemble historic 18th century, but more
delicate and are very skillful addition of uppers on the inside of the heel, or on the top of it. In this way emphasizes the plasticity of fine heel shoes and the whole shoes becomes a rounded appearance. It itself is a work of art.









But that's not all. I also like Tracy shoe lasts. They are an interesting shape and seems to be a  lot of comfort. The first time I saw her shoes, the shape of shoes reminded me of the museum's 19th-century shoes, which took the form of its owner feet. That is, Tracey Neuls shoe lasts has a form used shoes, only a very stylistically overdone and skillfully shaped the design of the shoe upper.






I find it very interesting and new, and probably that's why shoes look not only beautiful, but comfortable . She is also experimenting a lot with materials and the leather, adding a custom materials to shoes.


Have a nice week and see you soon!




In this post I talk about:


1. My first e-book
2. My husband gave me the idea
2. Making a video tutorial.
3. New pic from my fall collection.
4. Designer talk with Tracey Neuls 




Items mentioned in this post:




Sep 24, 2012

Sketches


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                                   Sketches

First, my daughter got sick, what can you do, children garden is a pool of diseases , and after her I got sick. But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, I got a free week and I was able to work on the project. I draw and sketch, lying in bed, and then noticed that in all sketches, figures constantly present a decorating element that does not carry any function other than decoration. I wondered why I draw this, I do not like just decorative elements. I love it when they are an integral part of the whole pattern. That's why I drew so much and could not understand why they do not impress me. It was just pretty  pictures, but without any thought, empty. They did not inspired me, I just did not want to do them. So I stopped for a moment, trying to remember my original idea. I had to emphasize the natural flexibility of leather and maximal use those characteristic  in my shoe. In my last collection, where the hidden interior of the shoe, which is never seen, I put it all out. My bespoke shoes. This, in fact, the most important structural parts of footwear, made of thick leather. I had enough of the kind of glimmer and at the same time, rough skin, for me to make a simple cut, no tricks are necessary, it walks the walk. In the sole, I use the natural properties of the leather to give the flexibility for the total construction of the shoes. Therefore, wishing to create a closed shoes with no cords, I had to do something that emphasize the importance, flexibility of the sole, and at the same time was decorative element, shoes should be not only comfortable, but also beautiful.
Finally, I drew a sketch, and I liked it.

               

 Here, the top pattern is designed as a flexible lock attached to a pole-arc on the sole. Thus used the flexibility of the leather in the sole with a specially designed structure of the sole. This is what I was looking for. I hope that my calculations are correct, and I'll get exactly what I planned. I will discover this soon. I do not know if I can make this shoe for the next post but I'll try. Please subscribe to my Email list to get updates.
Thank you for reading.

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Sep 13, 2012

Bridge&skeleton shoe project. Slow but confident


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Bridge&skeleton shoe project. Slow but confident     



In my spare time, in my "leisure time", I do not read, I don't  walk, I do not watch TV, Ii continues my work on a project where I was experimenting with the possibilities of the leather in shoe design.
Time passes quickly, I can feel it in a  physical way. Anything that  I put off for tomorrow, at best, will be done next week. That is why my project is moving so slowly. But recently, my daughter start going to kinder garden , I finally decided on this and I get a little more time, so I made another sandal in the "skeletons" series.  I called it "a bridge", as originally  I was inspired  to create them thanks to  Santiago Calatrava bridges. Sandals are constructed from the shoe sole and sliding to the upper of the shoe .It is the basis for the rubber cords that wrapped around the leg. 












           


For a more complete understanding once again here is my first model of sandals. 

                   

Thinking about the future development of the idea, where the sole -is the basic, or even, the main element of the design, I can see only the images and the shape of those shoes. Its exact design I'll get when I start working with the sole, and has its form and function dictate to me the whole design of the shoe.
This is like working with the fabric on a mannequin, soft tissue, structure and flexibility dictate fashion designer the look of the dress. This  is the magic of the creation, for me, when you merge with the idea and only it directs you. At that moment ,there is no ambition, no selfishness, no vain pursuit of commercial success. So I just love working on non commercial projects, where I don't lead by the thought of the sale, but only the desire to recreate the right idea, like a fire burning inside of me. I'll finish this post with a  trite phrase, but a correct one.
Don't  put off for tomorrow what you can do today.

Sep 4, 2012

The battle : men shoes vs women shoes


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          The battle :  men shoes vs women shoes


I've always thought of men's shoes as a limited piece of footwear design and never paid special attention to it. Therefore, it was difficult to adjust to its specificity, different from women's shoes, when I worked for the past two weeks to create a men's collection of shoes for one company. By the way why this is why, I did not write my regular weekly post, my apologies , but I was too busy.
At first, all the shoes looked too feminine, just much bigger. After an exhausting day of working long hours, I finally got to shift to male shoe design, first glimmers of hope appeared that I could still make the best of it. Then I came to enjoy designing this kind of footwear and now I find men's shoes ,of course not all of them, very interesting, so much so that it in many ways superior to women footwear design. First of all the upper shoe pattern in men's shoes is divided into multiple geometric elements, which in women's shoes is very rare and if you do find it, then it looks just a little bit over the top, in my opinion. Can also be created fairly clean and minimalistic design with some main, unusual element, which may be just an interesting stitch or a rich pattern leather. I just love the use of different seams in men's shoes, which can be rough from thick thread or an ordinary one, but sewn on such interesting lines in the pattern, which makes this shoes to be masterpieces. For example, I love the inverted rough seams, as well as logo printing that together is changing the look of a shoe, and I would love to adopt and use in women footwear design, but in more naturale way, and without excesses, like in men's shoes. 


 I also love the elegant men shoes, which at first glance appear to be identical and of the same type, but in fact have very many differences. Just look at the leather, which is used in expensive luxury men's shoes, all kinds of shades of brown and genuine luster.  

See some amazing men shoes on my pinterest board


 If you look at men's hand-made shoes, you will be blown away just from it looks and quality. It made in conjunction with the shape of shoes, leather and finishing, you can totally fall in love with a man's shoes and wear only that.
No, I'm not going to make men's shoes now, but I will try to take all the unique elements to my future collections.I suggest you take a look  at this wonderful creation process  of men's amazing footwear by Berluti.



Berluti from Art of Craftsmanship on Vimeo.

Have a nice week!








Aug 13, 2012

Success in business. Do what you know


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             Success in business. Do what you know    

If you ask me whether I see myself in 20 years only as shoes designer, then I'll say that not only that I would like to do, many other things related to design along the way will be just fine. For example, I would like also to create clothes. The thing is that my mom, like many other Soviet women in old days not being able to buy nice, quality clothes (it was not in the stores, as well as many other things), she sewed her entire wardrobe herself, and mine too. At first she designed all my clothes ,and at the age of 11 I think, I was inventing designs by myself, and my mother sewed them, tormented by my fault-finding. I remember how we quarreled with her about length of dresses, I always wanted to make shorter and narrower than my mother allowed me to. My mother sewed even my school uniform that I designed, for which I always got in trouble at the school. It had the same cinnamon-color with a black apron, but much shorter and was a completely in a different than all the other schoolgirls uniforms. I remember our long and grueling trips to the shops in search of suitable fabrics, buttons and other small things, because everything was so hard to get, until the Soviet Union collapsed and stores were flooded with goods from abroad. Since then I have drawn, perhaps, a few hundreds of clothing designs that my mother still holds, and was way ahead of fashion in those days ( I kid you not!). But, what happened, happened, and just recently I decided to try to make a collection of clothing, in addition to shoes, while not having any experience in tailoring and no technical knowledge.
 I decided to make this step two years ago in the happiest and at the same time a difficult moment for me, the birth of my beloved and wonderful daughter. Perhaps that is why I was not afraid of failure, the existence of my daughter inspires and has inspired me to any exploits! But I had a distant knowledge of the mass tailoring and I repeat, absolutely no technical knowledge. Instead of  taking the time to learn and practice, I ran into this thing without thinking, and as a consequence received a complete failure.  Although I asked my mom to come to my aid , just for the record, my parents live in Moscow and I am in Israel. Together we glued the printed patterns , and then cut out the fabrics. I was shifting between cutting fabrics and taking care of my daughter. I even caught my husband to work, we had to cut out fabric at night, because I came up with a  huge collection. That's me, I always need to have all at once, I always have to go big.
Anyway, because the patterns were all wrong and as a rocky in this business I hired a horrible, horrible tailor, and now I have a pile of cut up rolls of fabric, not just a fabric, a fabric I specially brought from Italy. Nice, right?
The conclusion is : engage only in the field that you know very well, and if you do not know and really want to, you have to spend time studying and only after much trial and error, act. This is the only positive lesson I learned from all this myself for the future. The following presented to your attention (the first time publicly) a few designs made by me in different years. What do you say?







                            

Write, and a good week to you!

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Aug 5, 2012

Historical shoes


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       Historical shoes




More that I look at pictures of  historical shoes, more I realize how I love this shoe. They was worn and lain so many ages, and looks no worse than our modern shoes, I would say that the old shoes for me - it is a work of art. 

I close my eyes and imagine how it was made.It was a long and tedious manual labor of shoemakers who created shoes from a sketch  to the handmade pair of shoes. Yes, dear readers, you heard right, until recently, shoemakers were the designers themselves. This term appeared and became popular only in the last 50-60 years, when the whole world, thanks to the popularity of Hollywood stars have become familiar with the names of pioneers - shoes designer, Andre Perugia,  Salvatore Feragamo, Roger Vivier who shod these stars  Historical and designer shoes on my pinterest blog post .  They made the shoes by themselves and introduced many innovations in shoe design. 


 I miss those times, although I have not lived at that time. And I am feeling that this is my longing for those times driving images of my future collection in to my imagination. Too tight, I plunged into the history books, and spend much time browsing in virtual museums of shoes, so it is somehow reflected in my collection, which I now cooking. A very interesting museum, one of them http://eng.shoe-icons.com/collection/ethnic.htm

Have a nice week end!

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Jul 27, 2012

Who can stop the "Super ram"


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                                            "Super ram"


A week ago I had a whole day of running around  all government institutions, where I came face to face with the inhuman face of the terrible bureaucracy. I do not like to deal with all these receipts, certificates, and here I couldn't solved it thru the Internet and  had to come directly to the Institution, where I experienced all the disadvantages of the system led by the indifferent, tired and unhappy clerks for which people - is annoying flies, which they dismiss anxiously. 
I do not know how the bureaucracy in your country, my dear readers, but in Israel it has a fat, ugly face. Frankly, I think that the bureaucracy never has a human face, and we all have to deal with her beastly grin. So after returning home all irritated and annoyed, I wanted revenge! Pretty stupid, and of course useless, but I sublimated all my anger into creativity and made shoes, visually displayed all my intentions. 
                                               
  Some would say that it is kitsch, but I love the kitsch, and I just wanted to make kitschy shoes.
present to you my "Super Ram"new pair of shoes for a hike in state facilities, which of course does not really butts, but simply creates a sense of moral comfort in the walls of the stuffy and impersonal system.

               

                             

Have a nice week end!

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Jul 24, 2012

Japanese Designers


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Japanese Designers

I am a big fan of Japanese fashion and Japanese designers. It's fun discovering new and unknown  to the general public designers. They are all united to me in the general name of "Japanese designers' traits such as a simple but appears as complicated at first glance, cutting, layering, and monochrome, clear conceptual line collections. We are all familiar with the works of Kenzo, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Rei Kawakubo (brand Comme des Garçons) but know little or almost do not know (at least I have until recently), new names, so I want to bring to your attention. Watch and enjoy, as I do!

Yasutoshi Ezumi, Taro Horiuchi and Shida Tatsuya on my pinterest board

















  
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