Le Shouvre

My Wimbledon obsession reaches its apex today, with the revealing of a new pair of shoes. As I said in an earlier post, I wanted the design to be clean and crisp, leaving a lot of white space.

The end result is quite minimal – especially considering I normally like to cover the majority of the front of the shoe, but it makes for a nice change from those busy designs. I stuck with the emerald green and dark purple colour combination, and used a lot of straight lines (which can be a pain to paint on a curved surface), and I’m happy to say that they came out just as I’d hoped.

One variation from the original conception was that I thought it apt to use Fred Perry shoes, or perhaps Keds, but Johnny (the owner of the pair) opted for a more affordable brand (Fred Perry can be pretty expensive in France) – although to be honest, as far as I can tell the shoes themselves are practically identical to their more-expensive Keds equivalents.

On the left heel, I painted a Le Shouvre logo, this time with a tennis ball as the “O”. Unfortunately the brush that I normally use for lettering had frayed, so I had to use a thicker one, resulting in slightly uneven text – but I just got a new brush this morning, so hopefully that won’t happen again!

More pics here

Well, after a slight hiatus, I’ve just finished the pair of espadrilles I’ve been working on. The design brief was for bright bricks/tiles, and some skulls. Caro found some shoes online that had a colourful skull & crossbones pattern, but not wanting to rip them off, I decided to take the same elements and go in a different direction with them.

All in all, I like the way the espadrilles turned out a lot; the colours make a nice contrast to the natural off-white of the canvas, and the skulls aren’t too realistic (that would be a bit weird), but also not too “fun” (so they don’t look stupid).

These are also the first pair that I’ve written “Le Shouvre” on, and incorporated into the overall design. In the past I’ve usually put a little cube somewhere in the design, but this time round I think the white speech bubbles work well amongst the rest of the design. In the future, I think I’m going to incorporate the brand name into the designs more, to link all the shoes together.

More pics here

Wimbledon started this week, and all the white clothes and green grass has inspired me. I want to design some tennis shoes – and who better to look to than the godfather of British Tennis (don’t laugh!), Fred Perry.

After a successful tennis career, Fred Perry invented the wristband, co-created his own fashion brand, and popularized the polo shirt. His brand has remained popular from its conception in the early 1950′s through to today. 

So, taking influence from classic Wimbledon images like the one above, and using Fred Perry’s own plain white plimsoles, I want to make a crisp, clean, summery design that makes you feel as though you’re setting foot in the All England Club itself… 

As for colours, it seems like the classic greens and purples of the Wimbledon emblem could work nicely – as well as a healthy dose of white, obviously. As yet these are “concept” shoes, but I’m going to start drafting designs soon and see how they look…

Le Shouvre has relocated to Paris for the summer!

After a long week of packing/moving, I’ve finally arrived in France, and can get back to business. There are several commissions coming up over the next week, including a pair of espadrilles, which should be fun. Also, we may start tweaking the site so that it’s more accessible for those who speak French…

I’ve just finished these, after stretching their creation out over the better part of a week. This time last year I made a pair for Anna, but we only had an afternoon to come up with a design, and our materials were limited, so the result was simple, if a little rudimentary.

This time round, however, I took my time. I’d been wanting to paint a paisley pattern onto a pair of shoes for a while, and Anna wanted something in the vain of certain ETRO clothing designs. The result is a design that is complex enough to remain interesting, but hopefully clear enough that it doesn’t look messy from a distance. Some of the best paisley patterns (in my opinion) are extremely intricate, but I think that sort of detail would be lost on a pair of shoes, as the colours would look too chaotic and unorganised when viewed from a distance (as shoes generally are).

The colour scheme is clear but soft; the aim was to complement the curves, and the overall feminine feel of the design. Also, the initials “AD” are placed in amongst the patterns.

And for a bit of fun, I added a fake ETRO logo on the heel of the left shoe, mirrored by an “ANNA” logo on the right.

Click here for more pics

The other day I finished up a pair of plimsoles for a friend, who had asked for something fun rather than artsy. So, I aimed for the shoe equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt: palm tree, beach, sunset… and a very red bird.

It was originally going to be a parrot, but after some thought I concluded that actually I don’t like parrots. Seriously, they’re really ugly, what with the huge hook beaks and tiny little eyes and such. Not a fan.

So, in its place, a bright red tropical bird that looks slightly more pleasing to the eye. Behind it, a trail of big red feathers progressively turn yellow and morph into palm leaves, which then ripen to a bold green, and become the very palms that nest the coconuts on the left shoe. I really like this fade progression, and two-dimensional pictures sadly don’t do it very much justice.

Also, the colours are far more vibrant in real life. For some reason my camera couldn’t capture the extent to which the cadmium red bird feathers, the deep orange sun, and the solid green palms stand out against the white canvas. I don’t like using flash when I photograph shoes, but I may have to try it out this time to more accurately show off the artwork. In the meantime, unfortunately, you’ll just have to take my word for it when I say that in person the shoes look much better than they do in the pictures!

Click here for more pics

I’m thinking the ol’ Rubik’s cube works wonders. The first shoes Lyle and I made, way back in the darkest days of early 2007 had the classic symbol of pop culture as their centrepiece, so it seems fitting that it become a resurfacing image to associate with the brand. 

This is the latest logo I’ve been working on with the whole Rubik’s theme. Quite a few of its predecessors have revolved around cube formations, but I think this works nicely.

I recently went out and bought a “fun cube” (the lesser-known little brother of the official Rubik’s Cube (registered trademark), who happens to be a fraction of the price). Instead of coloured stickers, it has capital letters, so you can in theory rearrange the cubes until the squares spell out funny three-letter words, Boggle style. It seemed like a good purchase at the time; it has since proven completely useless. It’s like a really, really crap Boggle.

Note to self: stick to the colours. Rubik knew what he was doing.