Katia posted this bit of awesome recently and it got me reinvigorated…

http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/13334/1/exclusive-alexander-mcqueen-aw12-backstage-film

I decided that I should get back to the bench and make a pair of shoes this week instead of living in theoretical / design / pricepoint land, in the hope it would spark a bit of “oh yeahhh, thats why I wanted to make shoes”, and it worked.

Although, I will also note that from now on my posts about shoemaking will become a little bit more guarded, not too much, but as my shoes start to really LOOK like what I will be launching as a range, I think it will ruin the suprise for everyone if half finished mockups are on here every 2 days. I’ll still post about the processes, just not the finished shapes and designs as much.

So, here’s some quick pictures from the last week’s worth of work :

working on more resin parts with my trusty new digital scales

seems there is lots of maths involved in designing super-heels.
Note that this geometry is wrong, I was testing out some ideas, the real shoes wont kick up that much at the front (if any shoemakers are out there reading and going “what the hell is he doing?”)

tricky stuff, getting a silicone mould of a locking part, then recasting it in resin. perfect accuracy!

a fresh batch of castings

steamed and pressed insole unit. 100% handmade. With cushioning allowances.

underside of my resin insole unit. Will be neater when I get the 3D printed ones made.

a quick bit of relief casting for some test run ball-of-the-foot soft rubber padding inserts.

… and my newest all-made-in-house shoe! Cant show any pics of it until i’m ready to shoot it properly / or launch the range.
It has a 130mm heel, a 30mm platform, and looks beautiful, look out Kirkwood and Louboutin, I’m on my way.

Listening to : Random songs, getting ready for the road trip to Sydney, burning mix-tape cds for the non-ipod car trip!

We have things on the go, I have managed to make up a completed working solution to my resin insole project, and am now in talks with a few people around town to work out how best to get some proper masters/molds made. I have been photographing everything, but those pics will have to wait until later in the week. Tonight i’m just not in the mood for Photoshop.

We have re-arranged our studio for a new MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY setup, and once everyone gets over the April public holiday marathon I hope we’ll all be back in there working away.

We also have some bangin’ plans for the new shop down on paper…….. if only our bank accounts werent *cough* um, empty, we’d be renovating like madmen. Alas, the perils of self-employment, all the time in the world to do things, but no money to buy things to work with. Bummer really.

On a good note it was Dani’s and my 6th wedding anniversary last week! woo. 12 years together. Ridiculous.

Another good thing is our bestest pal Julie bought us TICKETS TO PRINCE…. for real. Just straight up shouted us. She is a legend.

I will also be heading to Sydney to see the Darkness in a week or so. Road trip, with my sister. Very metal.

Lastly, I’ve kind of forgotten why this shoemaking studio thing all seemed like such a good idea 12 months ago, perhaps it’s to do with the lack of money available to us at the moment, so I best read over my own blog and watch a few more McQueen runway shows on YouTube to remember. It’ll come back to me, just seems a bit silly right now.

Thanks for sticking around, more to come soon.

Oh, and have a look at this if you get a chance, these girls will probably be all over your fashion mags in a year or so, so get down to meet them now before they become too popular to make new friends.

http://bernadettealice.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/get-real.html

Listening to :  My teeth grinding as I sit in the lounge room and plan new plans.

Shop renovations start this week! Woooo! Opening night here we come!!

Website : www.stevenphillips.com.au

Currently lives in : The Dead & Buried studio

After spending 10+ years as a practicing designer in Melbourne, Steve has taken the plunge and decided to turn his shoe making hobby into a career. After beginning the journey with a plan to make limited edition sneakers, his attentions were quickly redirected to fashion magazines, couture clothing and towering women’s footwear – and has found his (latest) calling. He is now hoping to combine his background in Industrial Design, Film and 3D animation with traditional craftsmanship and a passion for making girls look stunning by releasing his first range of handmade high fashion shoes in 2012.

Website : http://www.emilygreen.net/

Currently lives in : Northcote

Emily Green is a Melbourne based designer who makes artworks, brooches and necklaces that explore colour, chaotic geometric shapes and soft, organic forms. Her designs are inspired by my love of colour and the aesthetic of Melbourne’s inner north. Emily has studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Western Australia, a Graduate Diploma in Education and has studied Textile Design part-time at RMIT.

Website : http://hertriumph.tumblr.com/

Currently lives in : Melbourne

Katia has recently joined us in the Dead & Buried studio, so expect to see and hear lots more from her in 2012. She has also just graduated and is keen to get working on a whole lot of new stuff to showcase here, and in our boutique later next year.

She recently exhibited work in the Ex[ie]perimental Collective show at Von Haus as part of the 2012 Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Website : http://amberambrose.tumblr.com

Currently lives in : Melbourne

Amber is the newest jeweller to move in to the Dead & Buried studio, so expect to see and hear lots more from her in 2012. She has just graduated and is keen to get working on a whole lot of new stuff to showcase here, and in our boutique later next year.
Hailing from Canada, she has made Australia her home and is now a full time Melbournite.

Website : http://danimdesigns.portableshops.com/

Currently lives in : Melbourne

Danielle Maugeri is the Melbournian behind Dani M Designs. Working in different mediums, mainly porcelain and silver since 2001, the Dani M label has produced collections for fashion boutiques, as well as one-off pieces for gallery stores such as Craft Victoria and Object. Danielle has spent the last 9 years mastering porcelain in contemporary jewellery, with her signature colouring technique, simple wearable forms and small dose of humour in each piece, you won’t want to just look, you’ll want to touch and even eat!

Before my health all went to shit I had just managed to get my second plastic component made and I thought I’d share a little of that process with you while I have an afternoon here at home with nothing much else to do.

If you’re just tuning in now for the first time, here’s a quick refresher.
I am finding it increasingly difficult to source ‘traditional’ and/or industrial standard components here in Melbourne, particularly in the sizes and quantities I would need to make full size runs of what are still essentially bespoke shoes. It seems possible to order things by the pallet-load, or one at a time, but when I need 60? That’s where the problem starts.
That coupled with my Industrial Design background and general stubbornness has led me to a point where I’ve decided to batch manufacture my own components. Yep.

So, below is a bit of a peek in to how I have so far gone about creating my own plastic heels, details and insole units. These will serve as prototypes for me to test strength / wear life  / etc / etc before I make some final ones with designed details, logos, leather allowance and all that jazz.

HEEL + CRESCENT CANTILEVER DETAIL

To begin with, I used the wooden heel that I had carved earlier for the buckles-and-straps burgundy prototype. This heel is 5 inches high at the back edge (awesome) and is partnered up with a 1.5 inch platform = mega height, but still some wear-ability. I marked the centre points for a different moulding idea as seen below…

… but this design didnt work. I filled the bottle with silicon, cut out the heel, taped it all back together and filled the cavity with resin.
The problem was that the area needing most detail and accuracy is the top, and this mould always ended up with bubbles and/or not enough plastic filling the mould = too many failed parts.

So I revisited the idea (and YouTube) and decided to go for a more coffin-like mould seeing as my parts have a flat surface. This would still work with curves, it would just mean having to build up some supports from plasticine. To make the most of each resin pour I also snuck in a little crescent shaped detail I hope to use as a heel support.

All clamped up and ready to go.

NOTE! make sure you plug ALL THE LEAKS AROUND THE BASE… one leak like I had = silicon oozing out all afternoon.

The finished mould and recovered master parts.
For this process I used RTV-2 Silicone Rubber from Barnes in Richmond.

Mould detail, showing some locating pilot holes I drilled in to the wood so that I can mount each heel in the same spot with a template rather than having to guess each time. A stitch in time saves nine!

Next step, fillin’ it up! After a quick conversation with the staff at Barnes we decided that a rigid Polyurethane seemed the best option for prototyping. It has a low odour, pours well, is the least toxic of the resins they sell and would give me a strong part that is less brittle than the harder Polyester or Epoxy resins.
Brittle will probably = shattering when pressure is applied.
For these parts I have been using TC-808 78 Shore D Urethane from Barnes

So although these are quite heavy, they are essentially a super-super-hard rubber which means they should bend before they break. The final production run may be from something else once I have refined the process and spoken more to the resin suppliers around town.

I have also purchase a light weight filler, which are tiny tiny hollow balls (like sand) that you can add to resins to reduce their mass, which reduces their weight. The payoff is that the more you add, the more likely to crack apart like compacted sand your part is… I will have to test some varying ratios.

Badly focused detail shot.

So that’s where the heel tests are at. I can mould a new part each hour, and that’s fine for my production levels. Next up is to make a master form for a resin platform.

INSOLE EXPERIMENTS

With some success under my belt with the heels, I decided to try to solve one of my last conundrums, that of how to get hold of insole / shank / shankboard components to match my lasts WITHOUT having to either outsource production (minimum order numbers), go down the path of pressing my own (needing metal moulds, pneumatic pressure, steam etc) or trying to order pre-made ones whenever I needed them and hoping they fit.

A chat with my pal Luke who works in a plastics manufacturing plant got us thinking moulding plastic components might not only answer my short order run needs, but it would allow me to design the heel + insoles as one product. This meant I can design a system for attaching the two (even if it’s just perfectly aligned pilot holes for screws) that would again save me time in the long run.

Step 1 was to attach a metal shank to the last in the place I intend it to be used in the final piece. By thinking a few steps ahead it makes things easier later on.

Next up I wrapped a fat piece of wet veg tanned leather over the last, in the same way that I would go about making an all-leather insole unit.

When the veg tan dried it had formed perfectly to the last bottom, with an indent from the shank pre-formed into the upper surface.

I then coated the veg tan with clear lacquer to give it some surface hardness and to smooth it out as much as possible.

This one I moulded similar to the first (bottle) technique shown at the top, only in a container I had made from foamcore. As recommended by YouTube vids I cut out the leather part using a waving / random carving path to minimise the likelihood of the resin leaking back out.

As you can see, the shank indentation is still there, which will make locating it later dead easy.

This technique requires you to cut out a pouring spout afterwards and most importantly, a vent beside the spout which allows the trapped air to escape as you fill the cavity, rather than needing to escape via bubbles.

Cut out pouring spout on the left, vent on the right.

And there you go… two resin parts fresh out of the mould at 1 hour intervals.

Detail shots. You can see the shank position – the spout and vent will be cut off.

Exact 1:1 replica in Polyurethane.

A quick test of dropping in a shank. I’m not sure yet if the shank will be necessary, and if it is I might look at making one from carbon fibre or something else that is readily obtained, instead of shanks, which I have to get from shoe-specific suppliers.

This part will be glued to a leather or leatherboard (texon) insole, and then the padding foam or gel will be attached to the top of that. Seems a stupid idea to make high-end hand made shoes and NOT fill them with foams and rubber to make them nice and comfortable. You never know, these might actually be comfortable 5″ heels!!

So, that was a lot of typing, but I think it’s worth sharing these ideas. With an industry dying like ours is it would be a shame if future shoe designers weren’t able to make their own things here in Melbourne if they (stupidly) insist on it – like I am.

Listening to : Gravediggaz – 6 Feet Deep

So, one the one hand I have lots of time at home, so I’ll be able to do some more blog updating on the weekend. But on the other hand, I feel terrible and have been sleeping pretty much all day. I’ll see if Dani can take some pics of what she is up to and perhaps we’ll get some good ol’ craft posting on here again

On a more positive note our studio pal Katia Di Crescenzo is taking part in a Fashion Week exhibition that starts tonight! We’ll be missing the opening unfortunately, but if you’re in Melbourne and like things a little Experimental go along and check it out :

EX[IE]PERIMENTAL COLLECTIVE – EXHIBITION LAUNCH

http://www.facebook.com/events/157129964405241/

 

Here’s one of Katia’s recent pieces :

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