Bad shoes will disturb your psyche,
says a Czech maker of luxury
shoes
15 October 2014 11:00 a.m.
He started more than twenty years ago in a small basement
workshop. He was repairing shoes and dreaming of how one day he
would be making his own shoes. Today Michal Pavlas is a
respected custom shoemaker and his shoes are worn by the most
successful Czechs.
13 more photographs in Gallery
Men notice a tie or a shirt, but they still underestimate shoes, fears Michal Pavlas.
| Photo: František Vlček, MAFRA
Do you think that Czech men wear good shoes?
Well, it depends on where you look. It is said that if you go to Ruzyně Airport, you
can spot a Czech from the shoes he’s wearing. But I say that from a certain income
group up, the situation has improved a great deal. Men do realise that it’s just not
enough to have what used to be regarded as normal here. That they need to wear
shoes which are really of good quality, healthy for their feet, which look good and are
durable.
Sellers of quality shoes claim that it is shoes that successful Czech men
underestimate most. Do you agree?
Well, there’s surely something to it. It’s probably got to do with upbringing. Who else
but parents should, when you’re turning into a man, tell you that in society it is terribly
important to have clean shoes and look neat? It is these things which create an
overall impression that you’re a decent and honest guy.
Photo gallery
Open photo gallery
So parents underestimate teaching their sons to care about how they look?
What shoes men wear is indeed often neglected. When something happens to their
shoes, people often treat them differently than when they, let’s say, tear their trousers
or a shirt. I sometimes can’t resist nagging men when I see how they’re trying to style
themselves into a certain category but at the same time have dirty shoes, or even
shoes which need repairs. I tell them: What do you do if you slop your tie with food?
Do you deal with it straightaway or do you continue wearing it for another week? Or if
a seam on your clothes splits. Do you have it fixed, or continue wearing it?
How can a man recognise quality shoes?
For shoes to be really good, they have to have both the top and the lining part made
of leather. This will guarantee that when worn the whole day, the shoe will be able to
absorb both effort and sweat. The shoe must be able to get rid of sweat without this
having an effect on its original properties. Therefore a good shoe must be full leather.
I dare to say that if you go shopping for lounge shoes anywhere in the world, you
won’t often come across a rubber sole or any kind of substitute.
So a full-leather shoe is important for foot comfort and health
Indeed. The health aspect is of utter importance. If you were to wear shoes with the
incorrect inside arrangement, they would pinch and clutch your feet, which can cause
all kinds of orthopaedic problems. But unless you also have a quality leather sole,
sweat will accumulate on your foot which can cause skin problems.
And yet, the most popular shoes sold by most retail chains are partially
synthetic.
Unfortunately. Even if such shoes fit you, after some time a very unpleasant thing will
happen to you: you’ll start getting a burning sensation or you can also feel cold. This
happens when the shoe is made from materials which cannot deal with sweat. And
this then has an impact on your psyche or mood. And just imagine that you’re at an
important meeting, want to impress, but the soles of your feet are either burning or
feel cold.
If I want to start wearing quality and healthy shoes, what do I need to know?
Apart from that they should be full-leather shoes.
The most important thing to realise is that one can’t in the long term manage with just
a single pair of shoes. If you’ve spent ten hours in the same pair of full-leather shoes,
the next day you should wear a different pair and let the first one dry and relax. Of
course it doesn’t mean that you must have three to five pairs of custom-made shoes,
not at all. I think that, provided the man’s wallet allows it, he should have two to three
pairs: one custom-made pair plus two pairs of ready-made shoes.
But how should one select off-the-rack shoes? What are the guidelines?
It’s terribly complicated; the standard of the Czech shoe industry deteriorated to the
degree that we are now flooded with lots of poor-quality shoes made for example in
Poland. Although at first glance they’re trying to look good, after being worn for a
month the truth comes out. The customer should surely stick to the principle that a
shoe should be full-leather, and he should make sure that it is neither too short nor
too long.
Is price a guideline?
Partially. If someone in a shop tells you that the shoes you’ve selected are of good
quality and they cost 950 crowns, then you should start having doubts. Because I can
guarantee you that making a full-leather sole with a leather heel alone costs me
around 930 crowns. And this is not because my production is so terribly expensive,
but because the material costs a lot of money. Mass producers can of course get the
material cheaper, but there’s no way they can produce a leather sole with a heel for
less than 600 crowns. In my view the price of quality shoes starts somewhere
between 3 and 4 thousand.
In recent years even in the Czech Republic we can find products of famous
manufacturers of luxury men’s shoes such as the British Barker Shoes. Do you
think things are looking up?
This has generally to do with the growing need of men to wear something of quality.
The British manufacturers probably discovered that the Czech Republic is really
becoming a destination in which they can sell their shoes. Ten years ago it was
unthinkable.
I wanted to be the best
You’ve made shoes for a number of successful people. How did you get your
first customers?
Well, it was about ten years ago. It has to with the evolution of the society as a whole,
when people who managed to make some serious money started realising that they
wanted original goods from domestic sources. And hence also shoes. Customers
who discovered that quality shoes can be made in the Czech conditions started
coming in.
How long does it take you to make men’s lounge shoes? And how much
money should customers be prepared to pay?
To be quite honest with you, at the maximum we are talking in terms of weeks. Prices
differ and depend on the materials used. But they start at ten thousand crowns,
although we are preparing an attractive programme which will include more
favourable prices.
Do you make the whole shoe yourself, or do you buy some parts already made?
I make the shoes completely myself. Custom production is a very demanding process,
as you can’t use any mass-produced components, perhaps with the exception of the
last. And shoe laces. I don’t weave those myself.
What is the most difficult aspect of shoemaking?
To make sure that what you make fully reflects the customer’s idea. Because each
pair of shoes is an original, the client in most cases can’t fully envisage how they’re
going to look.
How did you actually become a cobbler?
I come from a family of cobblers and on top of that from Zlín. I attended a technical
leather school in Zlín and then went to a middle technical apprenticeship school, in
the branch orthopaedic shoemaker. Already back then I dreamed that I’d be making
shoes from the beginning to the end. Still as a student I worked in a local shoe
factory, getting acquainted with all the procedures and processes.
Did you embark on the path to fulfilling your dream straight after school?
Yes. I was lucky that the factory assigned me to semi-custom production in which two
old masters were working, from whom I could learn. One of them was in charge of
the shoe bottom and the other the top section. I learned everything from them: what
to do with the shoe, how to model it and so on. They passed information on to me; I
wrote down everything carefully and was learning and learning. When the state
enterprise started to fall apart after the revolution, I said to myself hey pal, the grass
will not stay green for you here, and went to Prague.
In the capital you started in a cellar, repairing shoes. It wasn’t an easy
beginning.
No, it wasn’t, but my colleague and I had to start somehow. I was repairing shoes but
was all the time dreaming that one day I would be making shoes. I kept working on
myself; thanks to my contacts in Zlín I managed to visit factories in Moravia or
Slovakia where I keenly observed their procedures. I call it feeding myself with my
eyes. I was constantly learning new things: procedures, technologies. And then back
in Prague in my cobbler workshop, I was trying them out. I was learning how to make
shoes quickly, simply and efficiently. That gave me an incredible strength and faith.
When did the break come and Pavlas the cobbler became Pavlas the customshoemaker?
Well, I still had a long way to go. I was already thinking about giving up and going
back to Moravia. But then I was approached by a Prague orthopaedic shoe making
firm, asking me to come and help them upgrade their procedures. I worked for them
for only six months, but it was a crucial moment in my career, it opened my eyes.
Until then I knew how normal shoes are made, but it was there where I learned how
to make orthopaedic shoes. After I left the firm, I signed contracts with health
insurance companies and started making orthopaedic shoes.
But from orthopaedic shoes to luxury men’s shoes is still a long way, isn’t it?
Yes, it was a long stage. We started from nothing and worked our way to the phase
when we had ten employees and did on average 200 orders a month. This helped us
a great deal to understand different feet; we came to know the foot anatomy in detail.
And I then applied all this knowledge to making luxury footwear. It was then when I
realised that if you want to start this kind of production, you first have to go through a
long and complex experience. It’s not a question of months, but years. You must
have the will to learn, educate yourself and continuously work on yourself. And I had
all this.
Source: http://xman.idnes.cz/vyrobce-luxusnich-bot-michal-pavlas-d7z-/xmanrozhovory.aspx?c=A141014_182848_xmanrozhovory_fro#utm_source=sph.idnes&utm_medium=richtext&utm_content=clanek-box