Riccardo Bestetti Bespoke projects.

[patrickBOOTH]

Is the somewhat sloppy finishing just a product of getting an all handmade shoe? Looks like there are a lot of areas were the sole dressing got on the upper. Either way, they look nice.

 

[Roy]



Is the somewhat sloppy finishing just a product of getting an all handmade shoe? Looks like there are a lot of areas were the sole dressing got on the upper. Either way, they look nice.

Like I said before. It won't happen with Edward Green shoes. Their finish is immaculate and also (for the most part) a handmade shoe. I am curious to see how my new Antonio Meccariello shoes will hold up when compared to Green and Bestetti when I receive them.

 

[dlind]

That is not the kind of finishing I would expect on a pair of shoes in this price range....

 

[Roy]



That is not the kind of finishing I would expect on a pair of shoes in this price range....

Let alone the waiting time. More than a year AFTER the last fitting. Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met behulp van Tapatalk

 

[dlind]

Let alone the waiting time. More than a year AFTER the last fitting.


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Doesn't seem consistent with what I have seen from Bestetti recently though. Would be interesting to know when these shoes were made..

 

[DWFII]



Let alone the waiting time. More than a year AFTER the last fitting.

Bespoke makers have always faced this conundrum--if they seek, or even unintentionally receive, a great deal of attention or praise their workload quickly increases past a point where they can handle it.

Everybody want something unique and exceptional but they also always...repeat always...want it cheap and now.

The maker is then forced to make a choice--to make shoes or to make money. Too many great bespoke makers, in the past (and nothing is changed today), have chosen the make money. It's being thrown at them and it seems a wonderful opportunity. It also starts innocently enough--hire a worker, then perhaps another. Then buy a couple of skiving machines and perhaps an outsole stitcher. Soon enough with increased output they find they can't meet demand again. And so they start looking for ways to increase output even if it means cutting quality.

But for all the wrong-headedness that accrues to the maker, it is fundamentally the consumer that drives the process--that drives the race to cheaper prices, lower quality and quicker delivery.

Simply because, all things being equal, the "average, even high spending, consumer fundamentally does not understand the nature of bespoke work or of quality. For most, quality is too wrapped up in price, access, superficialities, and brand name cachet/bragging rights.

Anytime the customer compares...even without prejudging...wait times, cost, style, shape, or even superficial finish work to manufacturers, they demonstrate their lack of understanding and their inability to appreciate the nature of handmade, bespoke or even objective quality.

 

[dlind]

Bespoke makers have always faced this conundrum--if they seek, or even unintentionally receive, a great deal of attention or praise their workload quickly increases past a point where they can handle it.

Everybody want something unique and exceptional but they also always...repeat always...want it cheap and now.

The maker is then forced to make a choice--to make shoes or to make money. Too many great bespoke makers, in the past (and nothing is changed today), have chosen the make money. It's being thrown at them and it seems a wonderful opportunity. It also starts innocently enough--hire a worker, then perhaps another. Then buy a couple of skiving machines and perhaps an outsole stitcher. Soon enough with increased output they find they can't meet demand again. And so they start looking for ways to increase output even if it means cutting quality.

But for all the wrong-headedness that accrues to the maker, it is fundamentally the consumer that drives the process--that drives the race to cheaper prices, lower quality and quicker delivery.

Simply because, all things being equal, the "average, even high spending, consumer fundamentally does not understand the nature of bespoke work or of quality. For most, quality is too wrapped up in price, access, superficialities, and brand name cachet/bragging rights.

Anytime the customer compares...even without prejudging...wait times, cost, style, shape, or even superficial finish work to manufacturers, they demonstrate their lack of understanding and their inability to appreciate the nature of handmade, bespoke or even objective quality.

I agree with almost everything you are saying but finish is one of the things that I believe you can certainly compare. Waiting times, style, shape etc are more subjective and to a degree so is finishing but some things like edge dressing on the uppers and other things that where highlighted in the pictures above are less subjective. To blame subpar finishing on the fact that it's a handmade/bespoke shoe seems like an excuse to me.

 

[DWFII]



I agree with almost everything you are saying but finish is one of the things that I believe you can certainly compare. Waiting times, style, shape etc are more subjective and to a degree so is finishing but some things like edge dressing on the uppers and other things that where highlighted in the pictures above are less subjective. To blame subpar finishing on the fact that it's a handmade/bespoke shoe seems like an excuse to me. 

No blame at all--you misunderstood. I think handmade/bespoke finishing is or can be, esp. among the top tier bespoke makers, on par or even better than anything being done by manufacturers. Just as almost every other aspect of bespoke is, in competent hands,objectively superior to RTW.

What I'm saying is that customer demand has a way of subverting even the best intentions and best practices . And since customer demand is almost invariably based on ignorance and transient notions such as what's fashionable, it is almost always detrimental to quality, nuance, excellence, and finesse.

 

[Roy]

I agree with almost everything you are saying but finish is one of the things that I believe you can certainly compare. Waiting times, style, shape etc are more subjective and to a degree so is finishing but some things like edge dressing on the uppers and other things that where highlighted in the pictures above are less subjective. To blame subpar finishing on the fact that it's a handmade/bespoke shoe seems like an excuse to me. 

No blame at all--you misunderstood. I think handmade/bespoke finishing is or can be, esp. among the top tier bespoke makers, on par or even better than anything being done by manufacturers. Just as almost every other aspect of bespoke is, in competent hands,objectively superior to RTW.

What I'm saying is that customer demand has a way of subverting even the best intentions and best practices . And since customer demand is almost invariably based on ignorance and transient notions such as what's fashionable, it is almost always detrimental to quality, nuance, excellence, and finesse.

Have you actually seen the pictures? Because what was shown were pretty embarrassing faults.


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[dlind]

No blame at all--you misunderstood. I think handmade/bespoke finishing is or can be, esp. among the top tier bespoke makers, on par or even better than anything being done by manufacturers. Just as almost every other aspect of bespoke is, in competent hands,objectively superior to RTW.

What I'm saying is that customer demand has a way of subverting even the best intentions and best practices . And since customer demand is almost invariably based on ignorance and transient notions such as what's fashionable, it is almost always detrimental to quality, nuance, excellence, and finesse.

Agreed.

Have you actually seen the pictures? Because what was shown were pretty embarrassing faults.


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I think he might be suggesting that this is due to increased demand for bestetti shoes.

 

[DWFII]



Have you actually seen the pictures? Because what was shown were pretty embarrassing faults.

Yes, I saw them. I try very hard and very deliberately to not criticize other makers directly. In another context devoid of association with someone I respect, I might point out that there are ways...even for the smallest, most iconoclastic maker, like myself...to avoid problems like that.

What I said was by way of suggesting that sometimes a great maker...can make mistakes or fail to meet expectations simply due to the pressure of popularity and the expectation that customers place on his time. And when a maker decides to go RTW...to increase efficiency, productivity and, by extension, profitability...we can no longer even be sure how much of a hand, literally, the maker had in the work in question.

James Lee Burke observed that "there is no greater curse than approval."

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[MSchapiro]

How bad were the pictures, out of curiosity?

 

[wurger]



How bad were the pictures, out of curiosity?

Don't why the poster took the pic away, just small blemishes.

 

[bengal-stripe]



What I'm saying is that customer demand has a way of subverting even the best intentions and best practices .

What I said was by way of suggesting that sometimes a great maker...can make mistakes or fail to meet expectations simply due to the pressure of popularity and the expectation that customers place on his time.

That's a neat, little way to put the blame for things going wrong onto the customer.

Any maker (of whatever product) will make mistakes and has things not coming out the way they are supposed to come out. Sometimes the fault can be corrected easily, sometimes not and the faulty product ought to be binned and a new item started afresh and from scratch. The later into the production cycle the fault appears, the higher the cost of a full remake.

The maker will be the first to see that things have turned out not to standard (long before the customer). He or she will have to decide whether to start afresh or they hope to get away with the problem as the customer won't be able to see it or, if they do, will not be bold enough to complain, asking for a either a remake or their money back. The craftsman/woman might come to different judgements for different customers: "X will notice and complain, but Y won't". So they decide which course of action to take on their knowledge of the customer.

Every individual has a different moral compass. If greed gets the better of a craftsman/woman, and quality control, best practices and work ethic break down, that cannot be laid at the door of the customer, but only at the mercenary nature of the maker him/herself.

Every language of the world has a word meaning "No!"

 

[DWFII]



That's a neat, little way to put the blame for things going wrong onto the customer.

Any maker (of whatever product) will make mistakes and has things not coming out the way they are supposed to come out. Sometimes the fault can be corrected easily, sometimes not and the faulty product ought to be binned and a new item started afresh and from scratch. The later into the production cycle the fault appears, the higher the cost of a full remake.

The maker will be the first to see that things have turned out not to standard (long before the customer). He or she will have to decide whether to start afresh or they hope to get away with the problem as the customer won't be able to see it or, if they do, will not be bold enough to complain, asking for a either a remake or their money back. The craftsman/woman might come to different judgements for different customers: "X will notice and complain, but Y won't". So they decide which course of action to take on their knowledge of the customer.

Every individual has a different moral compass. If greed gets the better of a craftsman/woman, and quality control, best practices and work ethic break down, that cannot be laid at the door of the customer, but only at the mercenary nature of the maker him/herself.

Every language of the world has a word meaning "No!"

I agree with you about the responsibility of the craftsman but a lot of the onus does accrue to the customer. Why has GY supplanted HW as the gold standard...esp. among some factions of SF? I would argue that a great deal of the reason is the customers' demand for lower costs and greater accessibility. Combine that with an almost deliberate, if not perverse, ignorance about the alternatives and I don't know how anyone could expect the industry to do anything but respond.

The individual craftsman is not necessarily a paragon of morality or virtue and I've never said they were. They...we...are part of the consumer culture whether we like it or not and just as subject to the temptation to gain financial advantage. Every great RTW maker in the world started off as a bespoke workshop with the highest standards. Standards that, it could reasonably and objectively be argued, they abandoned when they made the choice to put profit above every other consideration...when they made the decision to cater to customer demand rather than adhere to best practices. When they made the decision to replace skilled workers and age old techniques with machines and expediency that allowed greater profit margins at the expense of quality. .

One of the early contributors to this thread-within-a-thread...maybe the OP--the person who posted the photos originally...said something to the effect that despite the flaws he would just live with them. If the customer won't, or doesn't know how to, demand better, why would the average businessman assume the apparently thankless task of giving the customer more than what he is asking for?

Another contributor suggested that the flaws were made all that more egregious because the wait was so long. Implying that the waiting time was more important to the perception of quality than the flaws themselves.

And just for the record...I took a great deal of time to look at those photos. I thought that the finishing problems were more than minor and I would hope...strive...to avoid such issue in my own work. But...and here I'm going out on a limb and I apologize for it...there were greater problems with that shoe than a little bit of edge ink or cement on the upper.

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