The Bespoke Shoes Thread

[DWFII]

That said, I also agree with everything Nicholas says about how we pull the tape, etc.. Added to that is the fact that some feet are rigid, some flacid. Some hold more fluid during some parts of the day...so even when, in a 24 hour cycle, the foot is measured can be a factor. How we interpret and adjust the tape measure when we run up against a foot that has little or no 'yield' is a factor.

Then too, we take a non-rigid, irregular, changeable, object and try to impose the, often uncertain or mutable, data obtained, upon a very rigid, static object such as a last. It's not easy to pinpoint, much less codify, a one-to-one correlation between lasts and feet...although theoretically speaking we should be able to do that. The last should embody the foot.

For instance, where is the middle cuneiform (my 'low instep') on the foot? We can feel it. But where is the corresponding location on the last?! One maker will say here, the other will say there. Two millimeters up or down the cone of the last will make a difference...esp. in footwear that has no laces or straps or elastic, for adjustment. A misunderstanding or miscalculation here invariably leads to 'interpretation'.

Yet shoemakers around the world do interpret. Do make 'guesses.' And more often than not they get a decent, if not perfect, fit. With all the data I collect I make judgement calls all the time--do I reduce or increase a girth on top of the last or at the side?

And beyond all that, when we make shoes, we don't just fit the foot, we fit the client's head.

TBC....

 

[DWFII]

I collect as much hard information from the foot as I possibly can. I teach concepts that make getting the same results by two different makers as close to possible as the human condition will allow. But not even my students 'see' the last or feel the tape measure the way I do.

The reason I do all this is simple: A single human being can be different and their perceptions vary from day to day (depending on how much Highland Park they had the night before or how much medicine they are taking for an arthritic back) . If we accept that it's all interpretation and no two shoemakers will get the same measurements (and I don't dispute that), how can we trust our own perceptions to get the same measurements from one day to the next?

 

[DWFII]

DWFII has made a perfect analysis of what both things mean and the aspects that have to be sacrificed.

@Manuel Thank you for your kind words. Even a blind hog will find an acorn ever now and again. And maybe a person learns something of value after 50 years focused on one subject.

 

[Manuel]

You may think, but this has not been my experience. I worked alongside 7 lastmakers once upon a time, and everyone’s measurements were different. How you hold the pencil, how hard you push it into the foot while tracing, how you angle for the arches, where you place the tape measure, how tightly you pull the tape measure.. all these things add up to very different measurements. We aren’t machines, holding pencils at exact 90d angles at all times, pulling the tape measure a precise number of Nm every time - we are humans, we create, we interpret, we differ, and that it our brilliance. The differences are not a problem, you learn how to compensate when you interpret the measurements. I cannot work from other people’s measurements, as I’ve no way of knowing the intricacies of their measurements. It took years of practice to figure out my own

I understand perfectly your posicion, I too can not work with other people's measures.but why?
Because we don´t know what is the knowledge of the trade of the person who takes the measures.
Of course we are not machines but there is an established procedure that has worked for hundreds of years in taking measurements. 90º pencil and tape measure where we all know but ...... here is the king, the key to finding the perfect fit for each of the customers.
You have found your way that works for you but do you think if we both measure this last the measure would change? The answer is a resounding no, you can measure in inches or millimeters but the result would be the same, why? Because you know how far you should squeeze the tape and the same we all know.
A foot has a specific measure and margins, it does not have 10 measures, it will depend if the client is sitting or standing, it is the same, in any case you will apply one or the other margin.

Observe the measure also, a number 37 with a width of 21.5 and 20 in instep, is the measure of a normal woman, do you think she can find shoes with those measurements? No, you have to make your lasts, the amount of different feet and pathologies is what teaches you how to work what we call fit and this is what depresses everyone who wants to make custom shoes, it is not complicated to take measures, no, the really complicated thing is to prepare the lasts and apply the margins that each client needs because of course what you do to one is not valid for another, that is, an authentic puzzle difficult to learn but not impossible.

But the issue is not here, the thing can be complicated much more, here we have the case of Alan ............... we will see it more calm and with photographs.

 

[dieworkwear]

My feet are usually flacid, but during the bespoke fitting process they get hard.

 

[DWFII]

My feet are usually flacid, but during the bespoke fitting process they get hard.

As long as they don't start throbbing--very hard to hold the tape steady.

 

[DWFII]

There's another element to consider: If you use a tape measure to measure the foot, you have a bit of margin but you still have to be aware of the alignment of the tape vis the geography of the foot. Esp,. if the tape is wide. Simply because if a foot gets larger or smaller on either side of a girth measurement, the side of the tape wrapped around the larger area will affect the reading on the edge over the smaller area.

This is compounded when you wrap a tape measure over a rigid form. Take a German Style Pilsner glass

and make a mark at an arbitrary point on the side of the glass. Now take the measurement around the glass where that mark is. Take it with the non-measuring edge above the mark and then again below the mark. Chances are almost 100% the two readings will be different. Esp. if you pull the tape snug.

I take measurements off the foot with a narrow tape measure...and always with that principle in mind.

I transfer those measurements to the last using a string.

 

[Stefan88]

My feet are usually flacid, but during the bespoke fitting process they get hard.

I love this thread for so many reasons.

 

[dieworkwear]

I love this thread for so many reasons.

Please. Sir. You're making my feet hard.

 

[Stefan88]

Please. Sir. You're making my feet hard.

Mine are both moist.

 

[ntempleman]

I understand perfectly your posicion, I too can not work with other people's measures.but why?
Because we don´t know what is the knowledge of the trade of the person who takes the measures.
Of course we are not machines but there is an established procedure that has worked for hundreds of years in taking measurements. 90º pencil and tape measure where we all know but ...... here is the king, the key to finding the perfect fit for each of the customers.
You have found your way that works for you but do you think if we both measure this last the measure would change? The answer is a resounding no, you can measure in inches or millimeters but the result would be the same, why? Because you know how far you should squeeze the tape and the same we all know.

If I measure the same person 10 times the measure will be as good as identical each time. Yours will be different. Why can’t you work from anyone else’s measures if we all measure the same in your opinion?

 

[dieworkwear]

I don't have any technical training, and have only limited experience with bespoke shoes, but in my experience buying bespoke clothes, companies that try to separate out the drafting process from the measuring often don't deliver very good garments.

You see this all the time. In traveling firms, sometimes only the front of the house will travel to meet clients because the cutter is an older man who prefers to stay back in the home country. Or it's a MTM firm that puts a ton of time and money into training fitters, but they're all salespeople and the person cutting is a pattern maker in some factory in China. Or it's one of those new-fangled companies that tries to come up with a technical solution for measuring, like those body scanners (in the 1960s, there was a weird photography set up that tried to do this same process).

But rarely do these operations turn out well. It seems like, no matter how "precise" the measurement, if the cutter isn't at your fitting, you're likely to have issues. Which leads me to believe that measuring isn't an exact process and is more of an art, or at least a way for a cutter to get the information he or she needs for his or her very specific process. If you separate out these processes and put them in the hands of two people -- one the cutter and the other (even if very well trained) measurer/ fitter -- the two will likely have different ways of measuring.

 

[Manuel]

If I measure the same person 10 times the measure will be as good as identical each time. Yours will be different. Why can’t you work from anyone else’s measures if we all measure the same in your opinion?

Me too, but I do not think my measurements are very different from yours.
Can you imagine a client with three different fit and all the shoes are perfect? I don´t believe in miracles.
Much of the success with the client isn´t in the measures, no, is in the knowledge and intuition to move the measures to your lasts, subtract or add, modify ......
The answer to your question is very easy and no no no, who measure the same? Everyone? Everyone knows how to make last, take measurements, cut, sew, assemble, finish? You can count on the fingers of your hand the people who know how to do everything and less and less.

Can you imagine that you and I make a pair of shoes for the same client and are they perfect? We can assume then that something we will have done the same, no?

In Spain with 47 million people (47 million) I don´t know anyone, I can only trust who knows what we are talking about

I trained very good officers, but especially I chose one, which I taught how to take the measurements and in a very short time I took them as I did, to add information I took pictures in different angles and the indexes were the same. They were minimal.
Many people want to make footwear to measure but before the year they give up, when they do the first and they have to disarm them again and again they end up saying that it is better that you take this RTW, it is very very complicated to make all kinds of shoes and all kinds of clients and this is what gives you experience.

 

[comrade]

Re : MTM for shoes. In my case, recounted elsewhere in SF, even when the owner
and chief artisan ( I presume) measured my feet and had the opportunity to measure
and examine the shoes I was wearing, which fit perfectly, he failed to produce shoes
that fit. The fit was completely off and could not be altered. Upon reflection, mine was
probably a special case because several SF members have been satisfied with Maftei's
bespoke services. Nevertheless, I wouldn't even try a second attempt at MTM.

 

[DWFII]

If I measure the same person 10 times the measure will be as good as identical each time.

All other things being identical (the client's age, weight gain, etc.) I think I could/would do the same.

But I am near-as-nevermind certain that we do not all measure the same or in the same places. How many makers do you know that take a low instep measurement? Yet because it lies right over a bone cusp, it seems to me a critical measurement. How many makers do you know who take a long heel measurement? For that matter, how many give short shrift to the heel to ball measurement? Or the footprint? Heelseat width? Etc.?

I don't know whether there are perspectives or approaches where such niceties are considered superfluous, but I'd rather have the data than guess.

For that matter one of the major tenets that I teach is simply this: "If the shoemaker can't trust the measurements he takes with his own two hands, how can guessing make it better? If you can't trust your own hands....

I think that, ideally, a shoemaker should never need to add or subtract or modify the measurements he obtains.