Discover the art of making the ladies heel

Fun introductory/intermediate 3 day workshop leads participants through the process of fabricating a pair of open toed mules or a peep toe slingback from the heels up using quality materials like leather insoles and full leather linings.

Learn hands on what goes into the fabrication of a ladies' pair of heels by making them with the guidance of an industry leader. Learn fun facts about the twisting history of the high heel.

You'll be guided through the various processes from learning a quick easy way to make patterns to fabricating insoles to installing the shanks and lasting your very own new shoes.

All supplies and use of tools included to make your fabulous new pair of mules or slingbacks, made by you, for you! Emphasis is on hand fabrication and construction with very limited use of prefabricated, presized and shaped components thus empowering students to be able to make their own, unique shoes.

• (All Lunches at the shoe college are included)

Topics covered:

• Tools, materials and supplies
• Parts of a high heel
• Basic foot anatomy
• Foot measuring techniques
• Basic introduction to patterns and patternmaking
• Basic introduction to lasts: types and measurements
• Introduction to hand-lasting: Tacking & glueing.

Material Included:

• All leather, supplies and materials needed to make one pair of mules (one-2 strap w/ available choice of heel and simple decoration as time allows), from the heels up.
• Loaned use of all tools and equipment needed to make your shoes during the course of the workshop.

The Shoe College was established in 2003 by a master couture shoe designer/maker to help pass on the lost skills of this wonderful art. Discovering through her own broad based educational and vocational experiences (gotten largely in London & NYC) the lack of full ranging footwear design programs available in North America, she began offering classes modelled on training programs used for her own employees.

The Shoe College offers learning opportunities in all types of fully fabricated footwear through scheduled classes, special course work, certificate programs, apprenticeships and internships at all skill levels and in all types of quality hand-made footwear both men's and women's. We do not teach CAD (since courses in CAD are available everywhere) and we do not teach the fabrication of shoes which have injection moulded constructions, since this type of shoe is not a hand-made quality construction.

Classes are conducted entirely in a working shoe lab in Northern Az. The Shoe College teaches, inspires and empowers students with the skills and knowledge to design and make their own prototypes and samples freeing them from the limitations of component based shoe assembly.