How it all began...

  

  Throughout my career I have always worked on a large scale. Big shoe orders, from big companies, with big factories, churning thousands of pairs of shoes out in far flung corners of the world. Boxes heading to the high streets of Britain and cartons departing for supermarkets. And I loved it. The travel and the many fabulous people I worked with far and wide. But.... I always knew that one day I'd work closer to home on a project that for me would be a little more special, something that would feel a little more personal. I knew that one day I would work with smaller European family inherited factories. Within a less frantic environment, where beautiful materials and high quality workmanship combine to create something a bit special.

The creation of shoes is a complex process. Every single part of a shoe must be considered and throughly broken down to create a jigsaw that any factory anywhere in the world can understand. Where your language is not your suppliers first language. 

Sole colours and materials, insocks and linings, accessories and detailing must all be listed, referenced and where possible swatches and samples provided. Shoes arrive only to be scribbled all over with my trusty silver pen and my cheap yellow plastic tape measure always makes an appearance detailing changes here and there. From the addition of a few millimetres on a toe piece, to the request for more stitching to secure accessories in place, it is usually once second samples start to arrive that a shoe from the inside of my head begins to turn into a reality.

  

   

And so here it is for you to see.  Eight little acorns of ideas for Taylor Blake shoes.  From start to finish, from a concept to that reality that was inside my head.  Shoes that have developed into the something special that I hoped for and have become the signature design of #lovetaylorblake.