NatWest Bring it 2020 has provided £2,520 of match funding
Sasha Archer Shoes
Leicester, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To create a collection of captivating, timeless Ladies footwear. Hand crafted in Leicestershire, England using responsibly sourced materials
Hello, I'm Sasha, a Footwear Designer and Maker with fourteen years experince within the industry.
I'm on a mission to start a small scale production of Ladies 'slow fashion' and bridal shoes, hand crafted and manufactured here in Leicestershire, England. Sounds simple right? Well, considering that Leicester was once a thriving hub of shoe making it should be but today you'll find that the components required for making Ladies shoes are hard to come by in England. The knowledgeable skilled workers that we have remaining are ageing and retiring with the majority of the industry knowledge worryingly going with them. Don't get me wrong, England still has an amazing presence within Men's and Bespoke Footwear but Women's? Well, it's on the brink of extinction and I'd like to change that. I want to create a collection with an emphasis on responsibly sourced materials and components. My aim is to create something that will keep shoe making skills alive for future generations of footwear enthusiasts.
Shoe lovers with me? Great!
My passion for footwear is from an unknown source and runs deep. I can recall crying over 'needing' red sandals with low heels at the tiny age of five or six. By the age of eleven I was delivering newspapers and at age thirteen I had started pot washing just to make money to help me adorn my feet. At age sixteen I went to Hitchin Centre For The Arts to study 'Fashion and Textiles' where I spent hours cutting shoes apart to see inside and figure out how they were constructed. DeMontfort University was next on my shoe journey, I studied a BA (hons) in 'Footwear Design' where I learnt about designing to brief, pattern cutting for footwear and the basics of making a variety of shoes from Men's boots to Ladie's heels. I graduated in 2006 and immediately went to work as a Designer.
The truth is that I always had aspirations to be a Master Bespoke Shoemaker. I desperately wanted to be part of something less wasteful than fast fashion, but I found it impossible to find a Master to study beside. I set about creating my own syllabus: finding shoemakers that I aspired to, taking work sabbaticals and learning from them and then taking these skills home to further practise.
I found my niche after offering to make friends and my family's wedding shoes as self inflicted 'further studies' for myself. I designed them to their requests, cut the patterns, sewed the uppers, constructed them with hand made insoles and outsoles and had heels engineered to fit them. Every aspect of it thrilled me and I wondered how I could continue in a manner that would make my product financially viable to a wider market. I realised that I had to cut my making time down and get help in some areas and so I set about making myself what I call a 'kit shoe'. I developed new last shapes (the mould that shoes are made on) and heels. I developed knives and had them made for clicking (shoe making word for cutting out) insoles and outsoles and I spent a lot of time sourcing sustainable materials and trialling them to check their suitability for footwear. I started placing my samples on people's feet to check the fit, they were becoming a real thing. My 'ready made' components had reduced my making time of my samples yet I was still a long way off from being able to hand produce and manufacture a collection as a solo maker. After admitting to myself that I needed further help, I made a lot of calls, knocked on a vast amount of doors and entered a network of amazingly knowledgable, skilled shoe people in England. I realised that I could make this work and I could still make shoes here with their help...
Here's where it all began with my beautiful friends and family wearing my hand made shoes-
After prompting I decided to share my shoe journey on Instagram. I received a great response and my initial 'try samples' went on tour making it into two prestigious online publications: 'Love My Dress' and 'Magpie Weddings'. I started to get further attention with magazines and other stylists requesting my shoes for their shoots but I held back because I also started to get people contacting me to purchase shoes and I couldn't reach their demand just yet. I had invested all of my time and a lot of my money into creating a small functioning workshop at the bottom of my garden. My funds have been used whilst developing my knowledge of the foot by further studying with the Society Of Shoe Fitters, through developing lasts and heels, sourcing sustainable materials and trialling them, having insoles made (terribly by one person and greatly by another), making knives, developing shoe stamps and having outsoles made to fit my samples. Everything that I had in my workshop was set up to make my samples in a size 5 and that's why I need your help. I'm doing my best but if I could have a cash injection then this project could come to life a lot quicker. I can order a whole size run of everything that I've developed and for now, provide shoes in a UK size four to eight.
I've developed: the lasts and heels, cut the patterns, made knives for insoles and outsoles, had some insoles made and I'm now completing my final samples many of which have yet to be revealed. What next? Well, I'm hoping it's sell, sell, sell but to do this I need to be kitted out for every size run in my collection. I need all of my components in all sizes. The lasts, graded patterns and knives can be reused for a long time so once I have these it's just a case of ordering materials and components and I can get to work.
LASTS: £2,330
KNIVES- insoles, outsoles and pattern pieces: £900
PATTERN GRADING: £252
HEELS: £399 (this is enough to get me started)
INSOLES: £345 (again, enough to get me started)
LEGAL ADVICE AND CONTRACTS: £450
TOTAL: £4,676
Anything raised above this will be a super bonus, it means that I'll have a contingency for ordering materials, boxes and I'll be able to put some towards marketing. Exciting!
How do I see Sasha Archer growing? Slowly to begin with, I want to make sure that this company is built securely and that we grow great relationships with our customers. I am going to approach stores to stock my shoes and sell through my own website (currently under construction). Once this first collection is out I will add further colourways, I would love to give shops the flexibility to customise my styles to the colours that they require whilst sticking to my objective of using responsibly sourced materials.
I want to continue trying to make Ladies heeled footwear as sustainable as possible. So far, I am using responsibly sourced uppers such as sustainable viscose satin (made from a tree pulp) and some leathers that are superfluous to industry. Not everything I require exists yet and so I would love to continue developing into this over the years.
Once I'm truly established I really want to be able to take on apprentices to give others the chance to learn about Footwear Design and construction. If I'm successful enough I'd like to have my own small factory where people can be treated fairly (goes without saying) and learn the skills required to continue manufacturing Ladies shoes here in England.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story, any help that you can offer will be greatly appreciated. I have poured my everything into getting this far and to see it go further would be phenomenal.
This project successfully funded on 30th March 2020