Making 1920s Shoes : Bespoke Vintage Fashion

Hello everyone, and welcome back. I have actually not done any shoemaking since December, so it is definitely time to work on some shoes. And since I am currently in the middle of a massive 1920s capsule wardrobe, I need shoes. And it does happen to be my favorite era for shoes, so I really should have quite a few more at this point. Before I go any further, yes, this is a new background. I have moved to a different room. I will have a whole video about that in the future, so don't worry about it just yet. Today it's all about shoes. As I said, early 1920s in particular, right around 1919-1922, is my favorite era for shoe styles. And I do have actually three pairs of shoes from roughly around that time period that I have made. And that's really useful in getting started with a capsule wardrobe. I am currently building the wardrobe not just for everyday use, but also specifically for a pretty big trip that I've got coming up in October, going over to the UK, and doing a vintage style transatlantic cruise to get back through New York. So I have a season, a style concept in mind for all of this, and that means I also have needs when it comes to shoes. Currently, I have an evening pair of shoes. I have a day pair of pumps, which I did a video on previously. I love them. They're very gothic, just perfect, but they don't go with absolutely everything that I'm planning on making for clothing. Also, admittedly, they were the first pair of shoes I ever made on that particular last, and they have a couple of problems, which means that they're comfortable to wear around, but not miles of walking, which leads to the one pair of walking shoes. I have my 1922 boots that I made last fall for New York, and those things are super comfortable. I love them a lot, but again, they don't match with all of the things I have planned. They're pretty distinct with the bright red cuffs and everything. So that leaves me with a dilemma. In reality, ideally, what I would have is a pair of walking shoes, whatever they end up being, a pair of day pumps that go with the dresses and things that I've got planned, and then, optimally, also a pair of evening shoes that's the last one on the list. So automatically, I have a few restrictions, I suppose, a few things that I need. Add in the fact that I already had the perfect leather for whatever the daytime shoe is. It's the exact same color as some of the wools and silks that I already have to make a number of garments out of. It's a core color in my wardrobe. I really should use that. This is the perfect opportunity, and that leather doesn't really lend itself to a boot or a walking oxford as much. I could. It'd be a little bit on the avant-garde side, which I'm fine with, but I also have this pair of oxfords from around 1920, and I adore them and would like to reproduce them with a little bit of change. So that was already checked off the list from an ideal standpoint. That meant that I had to figure out whatever this sort of beautiful robin's egg blue tone should be. I'm starting with that pair because it's the easier one. In reality, the pair of oxfords that I'm going to be reproducing, there's a lot of effort there. There's a lot in that, and a lot of skills that I am only just starting to learn when it comes to shoemaking. Not every pair of shoes is made the same way. In fact, these two pairs that I'm working on are dramatically different. So while I've started that one, it's going to take a little bit more time because I need to review some things, plan some things better, and take my time because I just don't have a full grasp on those skills yet. And that's really true of a lot of things. I'm always trying to learn new skills. I'm always trying to grow. Even if it's in a genre that I already feel like I know a fair amount about it, there's still more room to grow. Which is why I'm really happy that our sponsor for the video today is Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community that is full of amazing classes that can help you expand your horizons and inspire new ideas. Though they are very well known for their photography and film classes, they also have an astonishing array of craft classes. And I have been going through all of them and making such a long list of the ones that I want to take. I really want to make paper flowers to fill in the spots in my background that I haven't really figured out what to put there yet. And they also have a natural dyeing 101 class. So I can finally tackle one of the things that I've always wanted to learn but have frankly been a little too scared to try. But right now I am taking the knitting 101 class from Vincent Williams. And though I have done a lot of knitting in the past, it's been a few years and I knew that I needed a good preview. And Vincent Williams class goes over casting on and the basic stitches. I get to expand and refresh a skill that I already have. And Skillshare is an amazing place for inspiration when it comes to new or existing skills. And right now the first 1000 of my viewers to sign up through the link in the description will get a one month free trial of Skillshare. So you can start exploring your creativity today. Thanks again to Skillshare for sponsoring this week's video. Back to those shoes that I had to design from scratch. And the reason why this is so difficult is that unlike a lot of earlier eras where there are certainly a variety of styles, but there's kind of a core essence to the style. By the time you reach 1920, it's all over the place. There are so many different designs, they are so creative, so many options. And that can be overwhelming, like really overwhelming when you go to design something or choose something from this era. And I spent untold hours going through catalogs and magazines, looking at original shoes, trying to see if anything was exactly what I wanted. Because I had a fair number of specifications that I had to match. I knew that I wanted to use that particular robin's egg blue leather, and it had to flatter that. I knew that it had to go with the matching dress that I was making, something that would take care of the rest of the garments in my growing collection. And that it had to be decently okay at walking. I'm not talking about I'm going to be in this for like eight hours a day walking over cobblestones level, but something that I knew I could wear on the streets of London in October and not end up with soaking wet and cold feet. So no open-toed sandal pump styles, that just isn't gonna work for this. Needs to be fairly enclosed. And I dug through so many different designs of that early 1920s era. Some of my favorite shoe designs are actually from 1919. And I looked through all of those, and I started off thinking I was going to do a two-tone Oxford. That I was going to do a black and this blue for the colors, and that would really set off the tones. I saw a lot of examples in fashion plates that used that color combination. Perhaps a, you know, lower style of Oxford. And I looked at things, and I looked at things, and it just wasn't settling quite right. Felt like I was going to be restricting myself by doing that. That I was always going to need black in the outfit somewhere for it to balance out. If they are just all light, then I don't have to worry about that. If I can put that blue tone elsewhere in the outfit, a belt, a purse, a hat, a feather somewhere, whatever it is, that's wonderful. But I'm not stuck feeling like I can only coordinate that blue with black. I've already decided the only color choices I have here. So I wanted something that was just the blue, or at least from a distance felt like just that blue. And that left me with a dilemma, because that took away a lot of really stunning and interesting effects really quickly. But I felt like it was the right choice. So I kept looking, starting to settle towards more of an open pump style. But I needed a strap or straps across the foot in order to make them more secure. If I'm going to be walking in these things, something that falls off of my foot if it catches a curb slightly, not the best. It needs to be secure around the top of my foot as well. So I knew that there had to be at least one strap. And I knew that I preferred the buttons over the buckles for this. And I knew I needed something that had some sort of visual interest. I came across this little tiny drawing of a shoe, and I really liked it. I liked the fact that they had the tassels, which I thought could be something that's removable in case I don't want them there. I'm honestly still debating on making some tassels. But I started straying away from this design. I didn't start doing that until I actually had already gotten the patterning done. So thankfully I already had the wooden last that I need. It's already a shape that works really well. I didn't need to change anything about it. I know it fits. It's comfortable. It's very flattering on my foot. Sticking with that. For the heels, I went with something a little bit more narrow than I normally do. A little bit more straight rather than curvy. So that way it felt more 1920s than 1910s. Comparison to some of my earlier styles, I started playing around with the design. Most of the design in terms of drawing on the last and getting the pattern was actually done in a Patreon live, where I talked about the process of patterning and the different challenges that come with making sure you put the seams in the right places and all of those things. And I came up with a design very similar to the drawing. I really liked it. Pulled it off. Looked at it. Kept looking at it. It's like it just... it's missing something. And in the back of my head the entire time had been this gnawing thought. That one of my favorite features of that era is checkerboard in general. But really particularly when it comes to the basket weave leather. They would do that in a two-tone or two different textures and fill in different areas or sometimes cover the vast majority of a shoe or boot with it. I am just in love with this particular style. And it's not something that you regularly see done anymore. It's pretty hard to produce on the mass manufacturing scale. So it's a feature that is just really, really rare today. And I wanted to see if I could incorporate that. So I started playing around with it. I didn't know if I was going to just do basket weave out of the same leather or maybe reverse it so that way I've got two different textures. I tried that. I tried it with black. I tried it with ivory. And the only one that really read from far away as basket weave or checkerboard texture but wasn't overly competitive was the blue and white. And I just fell in love with it. The only problem was that the opening that I had planned on the side of the shoe was not quite big enough. So I made that a little bit wider, a little bit wider, a little bit wider until it actually shows off the basket weave. And that ended up being the final design. And I am really pleased that I kept altering it and changing it the whole way through. I think I still would have been really happy with that black and blue oxford. But I know that I would have put that on with the dress that admittedly at the time I was still designing but now is complete. In fact, there's actually going to be a huge update video on the capsule wardrobe next week. So these shoes and that dress and so many other things are going to be part of that. So keep an eye out for that video if you want a massive update. But I feel like this pair of shoes, while very much my own design at this point, are still very evocative of the era. And that's the ideal for me. Not just copying an antique stitch for stitch or taking something directly out of a magazine, but trying to understand the era just a little bit better. That's been the challenge for the capsule wardrobe the whole way through. And that's one of the reasons why I love doing that type of project because you get to know the era in a way that picking one garment and making it just doesn't get you. So I am incredibly happy in the end with this pair of shoes and cannot wait till next week to show you just how many things they match with perfectly. I don't often show most of my setting up before I get started on one of these projects. While I do have to pattern the uppers and everything in general, I still have to make the heel. I have to pull all the leathers that I'm going to need, which sometimes isn't as clear as it seems. Which sole leather am I using? How heavy does it need to be? Do I need a heel cup or toe cap put in for structure? What do I need for lining? What's going to be appropriate for that? What do the originals of this era normally have? Is it a suede interior? Is it a cotton twill? Is it a plain leather with or without a lot of grain? There's so many choices that I have to make at the beginning of every single project. And I have to make sure I have all the tools that I need and everything is prepped. And for me, that means sharpening all of my knives. Whether I think I might use them or not, I don't want to reach for a knife and have it be dull. I will have to keep stropping and keep resharpening depending on how much I use each blade, but it's a good place to start. Then once everything is prepped, I can lay the pattern out on the leather. Though there isn't a grain on the leather, there certainly are strong areas and weak areas. There are areas in this particular hide that were a little bit different colors, so I had to really be particular about exactly how I laid everything out, how much seam allowance I have on every piece, and a good portion of the extra actually went into that little checkerboard pattern on the side that I was talking about. So I cut tiny little strips of that and took a few attempts to figure out how to easily make a checkerboard pattern. I'm using a lot of essentially double sticky tape to make this work because it is really hard to keep things close together otherwise. They want to spread out. It's not quite like doing fabric where I can just stitch the sides easily, so every single blue piece that you see put on has a strip of sticky tape underneath it. And then I'm able to work back and forth and back and forth with the white strips, which are a little bit lighter weight and a little more bendy, so those are the ones doing the up-down weaving rather than just going straight across. And row after row after row after row, putting those into place and gradually creating a large enough piece for one of the triangles. I figured this would be easier than trying to do one big panel and then cutting into four parts. So that is the final result for the little checkerboard, and it'll be trimmed down to shape. Next, in preparing the uppers, I have to deal with all of the edges. Most of these are going to be folded down in order to finish them off, and that means they need to be super thin. So I'm going in with my knife and skiving down those edges, and then going around with a hammer to hammer them and fold them over. Sometimes if they're resistant, a little bit of water can help, or even a little bit of glue to hold them down into place. But they were pretty easy to fold on this particular leather. And then started the stitching, putting in the checkerboard patterns first, then stitching the quarters, those back pieces, to the front vamp, and doing up the back seam last, because that's the easiest way to do it on my regular sewing machine. And once the lining is done up to match, it's then time to stick the two together and stitch around all the edges. You'll notice that I left longer edges on the lining, which will then be trimmed away to match exactly, which is easier than cutting them out to with to match exactly. I am leaving a little tab in the back though, which will allow me to nail to the last without hurting anything that will be left permanently. The last step that I have is the buttonhole. I won't put the button on yet, because with all of the shoemaking and lasting, it's too likely to get bumped and damaged. But I did go ahead and work on the buttonhole. I didn't have quite the right weight of thread, so I ended up using a really lightweight gimp cord, which does lovely as a base for buttons, but you should probably use a regular silk twist to go over. It unraveled as I went and was pretty difficult to work with. Still turned out nice though. More preparations on all of those pieces. I'm dealing now with the heel cap and the toe puff. I'm starting off by shaping these just a little bit. I know they'll need to be reshaped once I have the insole in there, and that, because that adds a little bit bulk that they need to go over. But for right now, I'm just stretching it into place, cutting it down a little bit, and letting it dry. This particular type of leather is really stiff when it's not completely soaked through. It works wonderfully for this. Don't ask me what it is. It was a gift. But it definitely needs to be stretched and shaped pretty hard in order to dry and form to the correct shape in the end. I also need to get rid of a lot of the excess seam allowance, so that way it's not bulky later. I chose with this shoe to make a shank using the cardboard technique. I've talked about it before. It's just layering up with cement a whole bunch of layers that gradually get smaller and smaller and smaller of a bristol board in my case. This is something I've seen in a lot of shoes from around the 19-teens. It's a pretty inexpensive and easy way to do a really severe shape. Leather is another option, but it's a little softer. After that, I start cutting out the insole and prepping that. There's no stitching in the sole of the shoe, so I don't have to worry about putting in channels or anything complicated. I just need to skive down the edges, so that way there's not a huge ridge on the outside. It's a little bit of a softer curve. And then I'm able to put the insole and the shank back on to the last in order to let them finish drying in the proper place. This is also when I am putting on the toe cap, and I'll be putting on the heel cup as well to make sure that they dry as close to the right size and shape as what they need. There's a pretty pointed toe on this last, so it's going to take a lot of effort to work down all of the different layers that I have to do over that toe and make sure that there's not bulk. So everything is done with tiny, tiny little pleats that will then get cut down and trimmed down in order to reduce as much bulk as possible. There's everything drying on the shoe. Masking tape holding it down, leaving it to the next day so that way it has the correct shape when I pull it off the last, and I will then be ready to start a lot of the assembly. Now that everything's dried into shape, I can trim down the bumps just a little bit better, and then everything can be removed, and I will be prepared to start actually doing the lasting portion and putting the shoe together. Everything now has a nice solid shape, good curve under the foot, and it's going to retain the shape that I gave it. When it comes to lasting the uppers, start in the back. Usually you lift it up a little bit above where it's going to be to give yourself the proper amount of stretch. Center it up the best you can in the back, and then move down to the toe. In this case, I had not put the heel cup in just yet. Probably should have done that before I started putting things on the last, but I wasn't sure exactly how high up that heel cup was going to go. So it's going in now, and then I'm moving on to centering up the toe. The front point and the back point need to be perfectly centered, otherwise the whole thing's going to look like it's been twisted and skewed. So this is the point where I'm checking to make sure that the side seams are lined up correctly, everything looks balanced, and we're not going to end up with a really wonky shoe. Then I can anchor those side seams, make sure that they don't move on me throughout the lasting process, and everything can then start being pulled into place. The thing is, this is an initial lasting. I'm going to have to take out those tacks. I'm not doing a full lasting at this point because I have multiple layers, and since I'm not doing stitching, going through all the layers at the same time, I'm cementing things down. Each layer needs to be cemented individually. So this is holding everything in place to make sure it doesn't skew as I work, and I'm going to pull back the leather and start working on just the lining. In this case, the front portion is a cotton twill, and the back portion of the lining is a leather. So I'll have to treat them just a little bit differently. The cotton twill, really easy to work over the toe, very lightweight, does not create a lot of bulk. I think that's why it is so popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a lining option for down in the toe area. In the back though, I do have to reduce down the weight of that leather before I glue it down, snipping and cutting back that seam allowance in order to get it to shape right. So once I've done that, I can put in the cement, let it dry for a little bit. I'm in the desert, so only takes like 10 minutes, and then I can start to adhere the pieces together. Again, very careful around that toe, making sure that I'm putting in as many tiny, tiny little tucks and pleats as I can. I don't want to have to cut into that fabric any more than I have to, it will fray. So I want to make sure that it is as flat as possible. Same thing in the back, a little bit difficult with that heel cup in the way, that will get taken care of in the next step. But very carefully shaping down on all of those curves to make sure everything is as smooth and flat as possible, and that I don't have a ton of extra fabric seam allowance. The tacks holding down the insole can then be removed. Yes, all of the tacks that go into all of the shoes get removed. There are some nails that are permanent at the end, but those are pretty obvious that they're not going to go into your foot. The toe cap can then also be cemented on. Now that the lining is taken care of, heel cup in back, everything flattened down and shaped down, and I will also trim back and file back any excess that there is. We don't want a bunch of hard edges and weird bulk underneath the foot. Then I can finally last the outside part of the upper. Lots of tacks go in I like to start at the toe and at the heel in order to do my cementing. As you've seen, you don't do the whole thing at the same time. You want it to be held roughly in place in different areas. Just work section by section around the shoe to make sure everything lines up perfectly. Then again, reducing the bulk, flattening everything out, tapering it down. It's not feasible to get this completely flat. It ends up a little bit concave, so usually there is an inner layer that is added here. This will also keep your shoes from squeaking when leather rubs against leather. I'm using a sheet of cork this time. This is the first time I've used this. This seems to be more of a modern thing. Cork is mentioned historically. Using something like a wool broadcloth is also mentioned historically, but the most common thing I found in this era seems to be that they make up a weird paste using scraps of leather that they've chopped down as the filler for the paste. This is something you could buy easily in the era or have made up from scraps. I don't have the time or the knowledge to do this, so I'm using the cork because I really do feel like that's going to be the closest to historically what they were using in the early 20th century. Once the cork's cut down, shaped into place, I can then move on to the shank, which gets simply glued into place, and then I'm going ahead and prepping the heels. The heel cover is cut roughly to shape. It's going to be stretched around so it's hard to get precise shaping. I like to glue the center back line first, making sure I have that centered up. Then that allows me to know how much of the adhesive needs to go around the heel cover so I don't have a bunch of extra pushing itself out the sides, and then it stretches into place. I am working with wet leather in this case because there's much stretching and curve that needs to happen on this. It's hard to do with dry leather. That sometimes isn't feasible. Some leathers don't take well to water, but this one does really well and it will eventually dry and back to being the same color as the upper leather, as you'll see. Trimming down the edges, then clipping to get around those curves before I adhere everything down around the rest of the heel to get the right shape. The front of the heel, called the heel breast, will be taken care of by the sole and covered up that way. So this resembles the methods that were really popular for shoe making in the 18th century, but it does so without any stitching, so it is much simpler. It is a little bit complicated to get the line where the top of the heel and the shoe match up really precise, so keeping a little bit of extra pinch on that to make sure that it is as close to a fine fold as I can get. Cutting everything down so that way, again, we don't have any bumps or ridges, and very carefully adhering that heel on so it is balanced properly. If it's off by even just an eighth of an inch, it's going to feel really uneven under your foot, so it needs to be centered up exactly. The last part is dealing with the sole. Sole leather comes much thicker than you need it in a lot of areas. This is particularly true with the heel breast around the edges. Usually those get skived down a lot. You want nearly paper thin around the heel breast, so I'm working off a lot of that mass, but I'm going to leave the bulk of the sole leather underneath the foot, so I will still have a good amount to walk on, to wear through, but it won't look like that. It will look much thinner and daintier around all of the edges. Now that that's done, it's time to remove it from the last. So I've removed the tack and back, cut off that extra little strip of lining, and now I'm popping the shoe off the last. I still have yet, at this point, to drill a hole in or into my last in order to make that easier. I have since done that part, so in the future it will be a much easier process for removing the shoe. A few extra nails that go in through the insole into the heel to hold it into place. I will eventually put an extra insole layer over all of this to hide the nails, but I'm trying to come up with a gold foil logo that I can put onto that insole before I put it in. I haven't had the chance to do that yet, so they'll just wait a little bit longer. Other than that, the last step is stitching on the little button, and then it's ready to go.