Artisans of Handmade shoes in Seongsu-dong

 The dictionary definition of artisan is 'the person who make something by one's hands', and also called 'master artisan' in English.  The meaning of a 'master' is 'completely baked, a mastery, talented', and the meaning of an 'artisan' is 'technical engineer'.  In a word, 'the technical engineer who is talented to work with hands' could be the best definition of artisan.

 

We can meet great artisans at the seongsu-dong in Korea.

This people give their life to make handmade shoes.

As the proverb says "If you do something for 3 hours a day for 10 years, you can be an artisan in any degrees", but these artisans in Seongsu-dong is work for handmade shoes average over 40 years, so surely we can figure out they are one of the foremost experts.

 

 

 

 

This artisan has almost 60 years' experience in making handmade shoes.  He started to work when he was only 13 years old.  He made shoe with leather from American military boots, because rarity leather was very hard to get in 1950.  Even though he have used glutinous instead of glue and it was really poor environment, he could get a name of 'artisan' in only 2 years due to his incredible effort for learning.

 

 

 

 He is steadily making handmade shoes average 10 shoes a day, 300 shoes a month.

This handmade shoes quality isn't low compared to brand-name products, and he said he can make much better products if he uses same materials as brand-name products.

 

 

 

 

 

These artisans is always staring at shoes. They said, "Shoes are fashion-conscious so they should study all the times. Therefore, when we go out, we have a habit of staring at others' shoes, and we could easily figure it out what brand it is, and what material is this shoes used."

 

 

There is artisan who works alone until now because of making shoes by hands is a lot harder than anyone thought, so colleagues left him.

Actually, when I visit his working place, it was hard to breathe by glue and leather smell.  Despite this environment, I was impressed to see all the artisans were extremely concentrating on making their shoes.
I'm very proud of them and I hope their environment and the overall profit of structure get better and people could be recognized what is actual "brand shoes" in future day.

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 Artisans said "To make shoes is studying and working at the same time.  Even if they can earn more money to do different job, they said they will never give up to make handmade shoes.  When they think about someone who wears shoes that they made and feel comfortable with it, they are totally happy just for that reason.  The Artisans have dream that they want to make handmade shoes town to be a global brand shoes town.  I strongly pray for them to make their dream to be future someday.

 

 

 

http://www.shoenartisan.com/