Noritaka Tatehana: Studded Phantom Heels in the Making
You might remember a couple of weeks ago when the lovely Annie brought us a post about phantom heels, those bizarre yet mezmerizing heel-less platform shoes hitting the runways and red carpets like nobody’s business. To piggyback on that, I’m taking you behind the scenes with Susanna Lau of Style Bubble, who met up with famed phantom heel designer Noritaka Tatehana, who creates for the likes of Daphne Guinness and Lady Gaga.
What you will see below is one of the most incredibly bad ass pair of studded shoes I have ever seen. You’d have to have some serious guts to pull this off. And now, I’ll let Susanna take it away; watch, and be amazed:
“First he skived the edges of the leather sole so that the edges were thinner than the centre and trimmed it, in preparation for the shoe.”
“After the imprint of his logo and the bending of the sole with expertly cut-out freehand slits means it’s ready to be joined with the grey suede and Swarovski encrusted upper (as instructed by Daphne Guinness). Both sole and bottom of the shoe has to be brushed with glue and left for five minutes so that the surfaces will stick together properly. I loved that Noritaka uses a Japanese calligraphy brush to apply the glue. He won’t have it any other way.”
“Once both shoe and sole are properly sticky, then he puts the two together, hammering away at the sole so that it sticks there. I thought there might have been a clamping process but it turns out Noritaka uses all parts of the hammer to really press the sole onto the shoe. You can visibly see the bumps being ironed out with the curve of the claw, the handle of the hammer and a super smooth edge forming that comes from the leather having been brushed with water, making it flexible under pressure.”
And now you know how it’s done! For even more pictures and the rest of the article, hop over to Style Bubble and get your fill!
(All pics and quotes courtesy of Style Bubble.)
