May 22, 2018
You have all probably been receiving a lot of emails lately with this EU ‘GDPR’ business and wondering what that might be? Well, allow me to explain in my limited capacity of what this whole debacle is all about. As the world of the internet is growing and at a rapid pace at that, you have probably started to see that we are constantly bombarded by the offering of things, like ads really. A huge […]
March 25, 2018
Having started making shoes now, well into my apprenticeship and learning lots of Italian, I meet a girl that would become my girlfriend and now give me more ties to Italy and staying there. The problem was though, that after 2 months of being there and no word on a Visa, I was starting to worry about it all. But Stefano kept telling me that it would get sorted by his lawyer and of course, […]
February 16, 2018
For those that have missed the first two parts to this, please see links below: 1. https://www.theshoesnobblog.com/2018/02/my-story-the-early-years-the-foundation.html 2. https://www.theshoesnobblog.com/2018/02/my-story-the-5-year-plan-the-first-two.html At Stefano’s bespoke workshop there were 3 makers, Masako (the head maker), Kumiko and Matteo. Then you had the RTW shop where Mario Bemer, Stefano’s brother, was based. This was a much bigger shop around the corner from Piazza Nerli. My first two weeks was working with Mario doing various odd job work. I remember thinking to myself, […]
February 7, 2018
My father was an entrepreneur and a complete salesman. He could talk to anyone at any time about anything. But he didn’t believe in school, not the brick and mortar ones but rather the school of life and the ideology of ‘Just go out and do it’…….“Just go make it happen Justin, don’t make excuses,” he would often tell me. He dropped out of high school at 17, waited tables and bartended for 15 […]
December 7, 2017
Good photography is a hard thing to master. It may not seem like it but there are so many elements to it that make a good ‘shoe’ picture. One might first assume that lighting and a good camera is everything but more important than those two things is the ability to accentuate the shape of the shoe as this is what really makes or break the photo and the beauty of the shoe. Because no […]
July 11, 2017
I have seen cheap shoes look good and expensive shoes look terrible. More often than not, it is not so much about the components of the shoe as much as it is the execution of the design. But the design is made up of much more than one may think. Now, the idea of attraction is quite subjective but then again I just don’t think that it really is when it comes to being on […]
June 21, 2017
For inspiration of beautiful footwear, well outside of The Shoe Snob ;-), Instagram is the place to go as nearly every brand in the world has an account and they are all trying to display their shoes on a constant basis in order to build their brand. I even feel that due to the growth of IG, blogs and what not probably take a hit in readership as everyone just likes to swipe now […]
May 31, 2017
I feel that the wholecut oxford is often misinterpreted as solely a shoe meant for formal and/or business wear due to its lack of decor on the pattern. But I find this idea to be quite limiting, like wearing only patent “leather” to certain formal events. The world has massively changed in recent years and what once was, no longer is. And part of that change, at least in my head, is the idea of […]
May 22, 2017
As many of you may have read, I am soon moving to NYC. That being, I have been up to my eyeballs in sorting out my life here to have a seamless transition between countries. But what that means is that my time is quite limited for long blog posts and whatnot. Therefore, while I would have liked to make my own post about the London Super Trunk that Jesper and I put on, I […]
April 4, 2017
Stefano Bemer was one of the most famous bespoke shoemakers in Italy before he tragically passed away in 2012. Luckily his name was not lost though as Tommaso Melani (who owned a leather company at the time, and still does I believe) took over the Stefano Bemer company and has since developed it into a very successful brand in the shoe industry. While Stefano had developed the bespoke business into a successful name, Melani has helped […]
