Y'all!!! Our shoes are done, but before I share pictures of our runway sho(w)e (LOL, get it?), I wanted to talk about the long process of building before we slip on our shoes.
Step 1: Find a pattern.
My biggest fear about this project was not having a pattern for a shoe that we could easily reproduce. A shoe-making expert had sent me a picture of a pattern he uses, but a picture of a pattern is not a pattern. I knew I couldn't draw a pattern myself. I thought back to all the times I handled Roman shoe replicas at British archaeological sites in 2022 and wished that I had had the forethought to trace out one of those shoes into a pattern. But then in randomly searching around the internet, I found this simple pattern, and all my fears dissipated. I knew we could easily Romanize it, and I liked that it did not involve cutting out inner circles within the leather because younger students often have issues with cutting out intricate designs.
Step 2: Visit the experts in person.
My next biggest fear was ordering the right leather, but then I remembered my advice to others about a big project: go to the experts and ask them. Since the amazing Tandy Leather store that used to be on Government Street right near my school was no longer there, I visited the Tandy location in New Orleans. To be fair, few people today walk into a leather store and ask for advice in making 75 pairs of ancient Roman leather shoes so I wasn't expecting much help, but the Tandy expert was super knowledgeable and interested in our project. She showed me samples and gave me advice on what and how much to order. I'm so glad I took my own advice.
Step 3: Order the leather.
Put aside all feelings of your own personal vegetarian sadness and order the leather. This step really needs its own post because it was truly hard for me to learn about the leathermaking process. I became a vegetarian in the late 90s because I dislike the meat industry - it's bad for the planet, but I'll say this: after learning about leathermaking, I feel better for the animals (leather is really a byproduct of the much bigger meat industry), but I feel worse for the humans who work in it. More on this later...
Step 4: Receive a giant order of 8 leather hides.
After ordering our hides, I was shocked to receive them only a few days later out of Fort Worth, TX. Of course, they would come from there. Tandy Leather runs its headquarters out of Fort Worth, home of the Stockyards, a historic livestock market. The box was HUGE, and the hides, when rolled out, looked like...hides. I don't know why I was shocked by this. They were smooth and cool to the touch and had that leather smell to them. I ordered 4 black ones (dyed) and 4 natural ones (probably bleached a bit to give that buttery pale color.)
Step 5: Prepare the patterns.
Every student got a paper pattern to cut out and adapt to their feet. Kids with longer or wider feet had to expand the pattern a bit with extra paper and tape. Once done, they visited the leather cut-out station where I myself placed their pattern on the leather hides and roughly cut them out. This was the one job I felt I should do for them to make sure we used the leather wisely and did not run out. Our leather was expensive (a little more than $1000), and I wanted to honor the spirit of our leather.
Step 6: Trace the patterns.
Each student taped their paper pattern to their leather, and then they used a blue ink pen to trace their pattern on the rough side of the leather. (Not exactly Roman for sure, but we discussed how the Romans might have achieved this task.) This process was time-consuming. Once one shoe was traced, they flipped the pattern over, taped it down to the leather again, and traced it on their leather. This process allowed for a LEFT and RIGHT shoe pretty easily.
Step 7: Cut the patterns out.
Oh my Zeus. This process seemed to take FOREVER - it happened around the time of the "flurricane" in Louisiana. When we returned from being out of school for a whole week, an endless stream of rescheduled events and special programs started up. Some days, only half the class was present. Some days, the whole class was present, but we only met for half the time. Some students can't physically use scissors. And yes, we learned that the Romans would have used very sharp leather knives to cut their patterns, but scissors were a much safer option for young students. Faster students offered help to students with less fine motor skills too.
Step 8: Tool the leather.
In this step, students punched holes in the leather to pass their laces through, but they also decorated their leather. Some chose punched designs that surprised me with their intricacy. Others used stamps. We had learned about the stamped shoe found at Vindolanda that touted the shoemaker's name.
Step 9: Sew the heels.
Most of my students had never sewed anything before. In fact, in the final survey for the project, most students wrote that they were proud of themselves for learning to sew, a skill they knew nothing about until this class. Sewing leather can be complicated if the holes are not big enough for the needle to pass through as leather is sinewy. The Romans would have used animal sinew to sew their shoes. I had ordered some that I hoped we would use for this process, but the combination of teaching novice sewers to sew with a tricky "fabric" conquered my dream of authenticity. I ended up punching through every single pair of shoes with a multi-pronged awl to speed the process. Did my arm nearly fall off by the end of that day? Yes. Did it get the job done? Also yes. It's times like these that really help me to understand the physical work of ancient craftspeople. Once the heels had holes in the right places to allow for a flap fold in the pattern, students who picked up sewing more quickly had their shoes in no time at all. They volunteered to help their less experienced friends too.
Step 10: Lace the shoes.
This step went so quickly. In fact, I passed off my job of cutting leather straps to a "lace expert" student while I helped with sewing. As soon as heels got sewn up, it was nearly impossible for the students not to try on their shoes right away. As they would prance over with the shoes all laced up on their feet, I squealed nearly every single time. I seriously wanted to cry.
Step 11: Tighten up the fit.
The beauty of this pattern is that it can be fit to any crazy-sized foot - slender, double-wide, super long. The lace in the front was easy to adjust.
