Gaziano and Girling fitted with JR Rendenbach sole and Dovetail Heel
Our client brought in these much-worn Gaziano and Girling Gable shoes. We worked out that the best compromise for a medium-use shoe was to use the hard-wearing oak bark tanned JR Rendenbach leather soles. Therefore, to match we would use the leather/rubber dovetail heels. The JR Rendenbach Sole and Heel are known to be stylish and hard-wearing. The gable is a very elegant shoe and employs a design technique called a fiddle back construction. Wherein there is a ridge of leather ‘bump’ in the sole that extends along the waist and under the heel block. Consequently, this provides more support and is a hint at Gaziano and Girling’s prowess.
Our Process
- As the shoe had had a hard life, we took off all the sole and heel block and rebuilt them from the ground up.
- We corked the shoe and made a fitted the new JR leather sole.
- The decision was made to forego a blind stitch as the original shoe had. We had unpicked the welt thread earlier and welt stitched the new leather on, using waxed right twist linen. We don’t use braided nylon thread as it doesn’t look as nice and tends to break down quicker.
- After that, we rebuilt the heel block layer by layer.
- As a final ode to the shoemaking heritage, we hand-dyed the leather sole and heel and hand polished the black waist of the shoe to a high shine.
- Using brass nails from a foundry in France we applied a decorative element to the heel.
