FORGOTTEN CRAFTS…
The cordwainer
Once found on every high street, traditional shoemakers are now in short supply. But Alison Hastie and her team, based in a busy workshop on the edge of Dartmoor, are bringing the skill back
Imagine stepping out in a pair of shoes, made just for you, that really fit, that accommodate your high arches or narrow heels, your long, slender bones or extra-wide feet;
and even (whisper it) work around a bunion. This level of expertise and comfort sounds like the preserve of the very highest end of the bespoke market but, perhaps surprisingly, handmade shoes are not that much more expensive than off-theshelf footwear. And, unlike mass-market purchases, such shoes are made with longevity and repair in mind. “This pair is on its third set of soles – I made them in the 1990s,” says shoemaker Alison Hastie, pointing to a rather fine-looking pair of Chelsea boots on the resoles shelf. They are one of several pairs handmade by the team at Green Shoes, based in the Devon market town of Moretonhampstead, which have been brought back by customers to be rejuvenated. “How long shoes will last depends on how much wear they get and how carefully you look after them,” says Alison, adding that you can expect at least four to five years of use and often up to ten or more. Once you start looking at cost per wear, a pair of handmade shoes starts to look like quite a bargain.
However, you are lucky if there is an independent shoemaker in your town – the days when the cordwainer, who made shoes, and the cobbler, who repaired them, could be found on every high street are long gone. The art of shoemaking, which has been around since prehistoric times, has dwindled to an all-time low. Alison co-founded Green Shoes in 1981 – one of half a dozen start-ups sharing premises in a Georgian house in Totnes, Devon. When Country Living first visited nearly ten years ago, the business was already an established champion of the handmade, ethically produced and long-lasting. Since then, it has come on in leaps and bounds. Last year it won the Heritage Crafts Association Made in Britain Award, and has recently been listed among the 15 top shoemakers in the world for its ethical standards. In 2013, Green Shoes also relocated to larger premises in a listed former Wesleyan chapel. Today, its beautifully high-arched etched-glass windows look down on a thriving workshop. Piles of leather stacked under a sturdy wooden workbench are graded from chocolate and conker browns, caramels and tans through to blues and greens to jazzier shades of pink, yellow, silver and gold. The temperamental squawk of the zig-zag sewing machine blends with the whirr of the more docile top-stitchers; the press adds its hefty thump as the Green Shoes logo is stamped into another pair of insoles. Customers can view this hive of activity from the shop, upstairs in the chapel’s mezzanine.
“For me, it’s all about the craft,” says Alison, who began making shoes after seeing the process in action at the Hood Faire, a festival with a focus on crafts, held near Dartington in the 1970s and 80s. “I hope that by allowing access to what we do – letting people look at the process – more will get the bug. There’s no reason why it can’t be replicated in every town.” It’s a strategy that appears to work. Alison regularly takes on apprentices and two of her current trainees joined the company after getting a taste for shoe-making at one of Green Shoes’ workshops. Apprentice Polly Collins grew up nearby and returned to Devon after graduating in 2013 with a first-class degree in jewellery and silversmithing from Edinburgh College of Art, where she experimented with texture and grain – “I was interested in making metal look like leather,” she explains. Supported by an award from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST), Polly started in 2015 and learned