Making my First Shoe: Part 2 - The Design

After reviewing many photographs of this style of architecture I realized my shoe had to be colour blocked. So I designed a fairly basic pump with parts that I could change the colours to suit the various combination found in the San Franciscan houses. I realized that whilst the colours made the shoe young, I needed an element that would bring the shoe into the future so I created a curved block heel in a shape that I feel is innovative at such a low heel height and with such a thick heel.

The assignment required that I design 5 different shoes so I also created a loafer version named after my Grandma, The Rita.

As I don't really have access to those professional Pantone colouring tools (and my colouring in is a little atrocious (what I could never stick within the lines!)) and I wanted to literally take colours from the buildings of San Fran I put the sketches into Photoshop and experimented with various combination's to create 10 designs on 2 styles:

The Falconette
Named after The Maltese Falcon


The Rita

Before presenting the designs in class I decided to go leather shopping to see how I could possibly afford 5-6 different colours per shoe. Global Leathers on W35th St between 7th and 8th ave was the supplier I chose to scout out. The people were very helpful and showed me their student section. Somehow I was able to find 5 pretty good quality leathers for the upper and a pigskin lining and all for a steal. Based on the colours of leather I could find I decided I was going to make the first Falconette pump.