Visit to the London College of Fashion

Last week I had the chance to visit the UAL London College of Fashion Golden Lane. Courses at this site are aimed at footwear and accessories. It is housed in an old primary school and has studios full of industrial sewing machines, jewellery making facilities, IT suites for Computer Aided Design and Manufacture and finally industrial shoe-making equipment. It was a really interesting evening and I was amazed at the amount of processes involved in making shoes.

I was escorted around the site meeting BA and MA footwear students who were prototyping ideas and producing shoes for their final show. They were creating the most amazing shoes and boots complete from design, prototype to final sample size.

Every student has their own leather cutting tools

Industrial sewing machine - note the raised bed to be able to sew all parts of the shoe

Shoe pattern making

A CNC milled heel in wood on the left and a 3D printed version in black on the right

Design sheets

Plastic shoe lasts

A final year BA student with part of his final collection of menswear shoes

Amazing boots inspired by insects!

Industrial machinery in the workshop

A final year BA student with his mens shoes inspired by portraits in the National Gallery. He machine and hand-embroidered the portraits which he said was really enjoyable to do.

 I hope you enjoyed this little insight into the magical world of shoe-making!