If the shoe fits they’re probably Roterings
“Sarah Rotering made her first pair of shoes at age ten. Inspired by high heels she was forbidden to own, she took matters into her own hands. In her mother’s sewing kit, she found two spools of thread. She used these as the heels, and attached a sole made of cardboard. She covered the cardboard with pink construction paper, and wove red yarn up over the feet, ankles and calves in a dizzying feat of fastening…” (from the Rotering Shoes website)
Twenty-five years later, Sarah runs Rotering Shoes out of a small King
West studio, a cosy hobbit hole with not an inch of wasted space. Just
inside the door, a small wall is completely covered by an impressive (if
not morbid) collection of severed wooden & plastic feet (they are
‘lasts’ – forms that shoes are built and shaped around).
Colourful scraps of leather dot the landscape, and work surfaces are littered
with works in progress and all manner of mysterious tools. Somehow, Sarah
has managed to cram a handful of huge machines into the small space –
variations on the sewing machine, which are used for stitching the shoes
at various stages in the shoemaking process. In the back room is a gargantuan
extractor fan that looks like it could suck up you and your pet in a heartbeat,
Sarah’s insurance against loss of brain cells due to her frequent
work with “nasty chemicals and glue”.
Sarah’s love affair with shoes has continued since her early experiments
with spools of thread for heels – through years working with high
profile Canadian theatrical wardrobe shops and to the UK to study shoemaking
at the London College of Fashion. In 2003, Rotering Shoes opened its doors
right here in the NFZ. For those who share her enthusiasm and passion
for handcrafted footwear, Sarah has been designing and building custom
shoes & boots. In 2004, Sarah began offering workshops in which you
can design and build your own pair of shoes under her tutelage. The cost
is $575 plus GST and includes the tools and materials. Considering that
a custom pair made by Sarah herself starts at about $400, learning to
make your own could be seen as a bargain!
Though the shoes featured on Sarah’s website are as diverse as her
clientele, she has a personal penchant for the vintage footwear of the
1930’s-1950’s. She is particularly partial to women’s
shoes inspired by the 1940’s ‘bar’ shoe (an elegant
curvaceous pump with a beautifully rounded toe and a strap across the
top of the foot). Sarah does build a lot of high heels and has implemented
measures in her designs to provide as much added comfort for the wearer
as one can in shoes, which she admits, “force the foot into an unnatural
position”. She incorporates some strategically placed additional
padding in her high-heeled designs – a measure which she claims
would only cost an extra 3 cents a pair for the big shoe companies to
do on all mass produced high-heeled shoes (anyone feel like starting a
lobby group?).
When asked to describe a favourite design or project, Sarah showed me
a photograph of the shoes she built for herself and her husband, Michael,
for their recent wedding – a handsome two tone brogue with a delicate
pattern cut into black faux reptile for Michael and a saucy two tone pump
for Sarah to compliment her vintage wedding dress.
Such labours of love don’t pay the rent, however – and though
Sarah’s craft and skill have compounded in the past few years as
she has created footwear for everyone from your friendly neighbourhood
fetishist to folks gifted with extra toes and bunions, running a business
is quite simply very hard work, and Sarah has decided to redirect her
creative forces.
Rotering Shoes will be closing its doors later this summer so that Sarah
can concentrate on other creative shoe-related pursuits. (Don’t
worry, at least two other NFZ shoemakers may be willing to help you with
your dream shoes…check out Colin
Campbell and Jeff Churchill
). Sarah is writing an ‘e-book’ on how to make shoes
(with step-by-step instructions) and a coffee table book – a pictorial
history of shoemaking and design. She is excited about the chance to concentrate
on these projects full time and will also be looking for new opportunities
to teach her craft. Sarah does a great deal of the research for her designs
and her writing at the Bata Shoe
Museum, where she will continue to teach workshops. If you are interested
in registering for one of the last shoemaking workshops before Rotering
Shoes closes its studio – check out Sarah’s website
without delay!