The Art of Shoemaking

A Step by Step Instructional Video on Making Your Own Custom Outstitched Shoes. 

 At 5 hours long, this disc set includes 5 DVD’s, as well as an additional information CD with printable documents and patterns. 

Glen Leasure, the DVD’s instructor and a shoe maker for over 30 years, made hundreds of pairs of shoes. Glen also taught shoe making classes and started this video in order to keep this dying craft alive. 

No experience is necessary to start making shoes, although hand eye coordination is very helpful.

With this method of making shoes, minimal tools are required. This video demonstrates how to make shoes with just hand tools, but also shows how machines can speed up the process.  

Whereas other videos may show you some of the steps of shoe construction this video is intended to teach its viewer how to construct this specific type of shoe from start to finish on his or her own.  Glen shares his gems and tricks throughout the video as he teaches you how to make this custom made casual walking shoe. 

Custom means that most aspects of the shoe will be designed around your actual feet, making shoe sizing irrelevant. Not only will you design the bottoms of the shoes around drawings of your feet, you will also make the foot bed out of orthopedic foam that will compact over time creating your custom formed footbed. Once you construct the uppers you will then mold them over top of your feet and attach them to the bottoms of your shoes. We cannot guarantee that your first pair of shoes will be just as you imagined since every person likes their shoes to fit and look a certain way. We encourage you to adjust patterns and develop your own particular way of making shoes designed around your particular needs. 

Your feet are your foundation and means of movement. Unfortunately, foot problems are a common ailment in our country.  Most of these problems are preventable with healthier shoes, or relievable with custom fitting.  Every foot is unique.  Even your own two feet are not twins!  In our opinion shoes that are stiff and hard should be worn as little as possible.  If your feet’s 64 joints are not flexed, they can stiffen and lose range of motion causing the muscles in your feet to atrophy.  Flexible shoes (or none at all!) can promote good foot health. 

This DVD Set Teaches You How to Make Casual, Soft Leather, Lowtop, Outstitched Shoes.

The Feel of the Shoes

The shoe uppers are designed to be made from top-grain chap, cow or bull hide.  This type of leather is very thick, soft, and a little stretchy, unlike typical shoe leather, which is generally thin and stiff. Optional linings can be made of top grain, cow, calf, and pigskin leather. The video teaches you how to make shoes with thick, soft, self-molding insoles, permanently built-in, for unparalleled custom support. Under your weight, this custom footbed collapses into perfectly fitting support for your feet alone. Additional arch supports, “cookies”, are possible to add but are not covered in this video.

Outstitched Versus Other Methods of Shoe Construction 

There are different ways of attaching the upper (the part of the shoe which surrounds the top and sides of the foot) to the midsole (main structure under the foot).  For many shoes the upper is turned in towards the foot and attached under the midsole.  Glen preferred the method called outstitched also known as stitchdown.  With this method the upper is turned out away from the foot and is stitched down to the midsole. This is the method taught in the video. There are a few reasons Glen chose to make outstitched shoes.  They can be more durable and less complex to make than other methods and don’t require expensive custom lasts (wood or plastic molds of feet).  When the uppers are turned out and stitched down a protective bumper is created around the shoe helping to protect the upper from wear and tear.  This method also makes it possible for the upper part of the shoe to be lasted/molded right on the foot rather than on a homemade or store bought last.

Heels

Heels on shoes are generally for fashion.  Glen’s shoes are designed without a heel although a slight wedge heel can be incorporated.  This is because he felt heels were usually not needed and often unhealthy.  The addition of a heel can shift a person’s weight forward making him or her compensate in the hips and back to stay upright.   Therefore, heels are not used or covered in this video.   

Here is what will be included on each disc:

The Art of Shoemaking DVD Set $149.00

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