The Honourable Cordwainers’ Company
36th Annual General Meeting
Virtual Meeting via Zoom
October 22-24, 2021
Not to be undone by a pesky virus, The Honourable Cordwainers’ Company is hosting its 2021 Annual General Meeting via Zoom! Yes, that’s right. You can explore historical shoemaking and footwear – learn from fellow scholar-artisans! – while sipping wine incognito from your coffee cup and wearing your pajamas. We have a great program lined up with presenters from around the world! Registration is discounted this year and will be $20 per Zoom link (household).
Register through PayPal here: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/Honoura ... le.x=en_US
(Please make sure to add your email address)
2021 SCHEDULE (All times EST)
Friday 10/22
7:00 p.m. AGM for HCC members (annual business meeting for dues-paid members)
7:30-7:45 p.m. Opening Remarks from the President and Virtual Toast to the Guild
Bring your favourite beverage, don your funny hats (or shoes) and ring in the weekend with a toast to St. Crispin!
Saturday 10/23
8:45 a.m. Welcome to Attendees
9:00 a.m.
Nicole Boileau, Apprentice Shoemaker
John (Rob) Welch, Apprentice Shoemaker
Valentine Povinelli, Master Shoemaker
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Shoemakers’ Shop
‘“No material on hand” – Rediscovering leather dressing’
Much like the Virginia government shop we represent at the Publick Armoury, proper uppers leather has become difficult to source. As with Matthew Anderson’s shop, we have had to resort to dressing our own material for this purpose. This presentation will demonstrate and describe the physical process, discuss the research involved in our rediscovery, and share our results and insights.
9:45 a.m.
Carsten Metz, Independent Private Shoemaker
“The rise and fall of the German shoe metropolis Pirmasens”
Located in Palatinate, a region in the south west of Germany at the border to France, the city Pirmasens developed between 1790–1969 from an impoverished area with high unemployment rapidly to an industry of 32000 workers. Pirmasens made Germany to the third biggest shoe exporting nation of the world in 1913 and produced 62 million pairs of shoes a year, thereby supplying one third of all shoes worn in Germany in 1969. This development, however, did not come without a price. With a focus on working conditions, material supply and the overall economic situation, this talk will review the history of the German shoe making industry from the early beginnings through industrialisation, two world wars and reconstruction to final decline.
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break & Stretch
11:00 a.m.
Brett Walker, Independent Historical Shoemaker
“Head Over Heels: Exploring Fashion Choices on the Early American Frontier”
Movies, fiction books, non-fiction books, blogs, and other forms of communication suffer from a tendency to “paint with a broad brush” when it comes to buying choices of past generations. Few places exhibit that inclination to group too broadly than the early American frontier. A mental picture of the “typical” person along the hinterlands of the European colonies in North America – a place of tremendous exchange of native and European thoughts and ideals – rapidly forms when the subject is raised. How accurate is that picture? Brett Walker is a practicing cordwainer, historian, and teacher who endeavours to explore (and sometimes explode?) pervasive mythos about early America which we’ve adopted from pop culture. Using period sources and extant shoes from the period, he attempts to demonstrate that the range of shoes and boots purchased and worn, as well as the motivations for doing so, is as wildly varied as the people who called the frontier, in some sense, their home.
11:45 a.m.
Rebecca Shawcross, Senior Shoe Curator, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery
“The Shoe Must Go On!”
Since closing the museum in February 2017 we have undergone a major expansion and redevelopment project, doubling the size of the museum and building a new shoe gallery. This talk will explore how the new shoe gallery was created to tell the stories of the people who design, make and wear shoes.
12:30 p.m.
Anne Marika Verploegh Chassé, Shoe and Bootmaker, Instructor, FIT, RISD & Parsons
“Staying healthy for makers”
We all work many hours in quite taxing positions.
I have been doing yoga for many years to keep my joints and back flexible and agile.
In my presentation I will share some of my routine that I do while I am sitting on my workbench.
Sunday 10/24
8:45 Greetings & Coffee
9:00 a.m.
D. A. Saguto, Project Director, Vasa Museum
“Footprints on the Past: Preliminary Observations of the Footwear from the 1628 Wreck of the Ship Vasa”
Footwear retains the physical imprint of the wearer, recording anthropometric data such as foot size, gait, and pathology. Prior to the 17th-century, it was also one of the first items of clothing produced in standardized sizes on an industrial scale. The Vasa collection includes more than 6300 leather fragments, most from footwear, including shoes, boots, and overshoes made by a variety of techniques with unique departures from other known 17th-century finds. The assemblage also includes tools and materials for making and repairing shoes, which reveal the presence of this skill among the crew, and give some idea of how footwear was maintained at sea. This paper will present the results of the initial reconnaissance of the collection in advance of its full detailed documentation, with observations of significant features.
9:45 a.m.
Matthew Schlicksup, Independent Historical Shoemaker
“A Survey of 18th-Century Women's Shoes”
The shoes worn by women throughout the 18th century represent a striking variety of materials, colors, design features and construction types which present unique challenges when reproducing them today. Using images of surviving originals, this presentation will provide a framework for better understanding 18th-century women’s shoes and their evolution over the course of the century.
10:30 a.m. Coffee Break & Stretch
11:00 a.m.
Dr. Marquita Volken, Senior Curator, Gentle Craft Shoe Museum, Independent Researcher in Archaeology.
“Shoemaker's Tools Through the Ages, Archaeological Research and Experimentation”
Exploring the development of a variety of shoemakers’ tool shapes from prehistory to the Middle Ages (awls, knives, etc.), with a special focus on reconstructing tool sets from each period based on archaeological finds, and testing them through experimental archaeology.
11:45 a.m.
Elizabeth Semmelhack, Director & Senior Curator, Bata Shoe Museum
“Unboxed: A Cultural History of Sneakers”
The history of sneakers is interlaced with fascinating stories of cutting-edge technological innovation, complex cultural politics, and shifting ideas of gender. This talk will trace how this confluence of influences has transformed sneakers into cultural icons.
Time Conversions
Richmond (USA - Virginia) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 9:00:00 am EDT UTC-4 hours
Toronto (Canada - Ontario) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 9:00:00 am EDT UTC-4 hours
Berlin (Germany - Berlin) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 3:00:00 pm CEST UTC+2 hours
Geneva (Switzerland - Geneva) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 3:00:00 pm CEST UTC+2 hours
London (United Kingdom - England) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 2:00:00 pm BST UTC+1 hour
Los Angeles (USA - California) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 6:00:00 am PDT UTC-7 hours
Sydney (Australia - New South Wales) Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 12:00:00 midnight AEDT UTC+11 hours
Corresponding UTC (GMT) Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 13:00:00