Gabriele Gmeiner:

Venice — Walking in their shoes

Gabriele Gmeiner: 00:25

I think the Venetians, they need such realities. And I also need Venice. I mean, it’s not a metropole like London or Paris, like, where you have the customers living there. Not being a Metropole, the living conditions in Venice are much better than they would be in London or Paris. It’s much easier to live in Venice, but still I can work with the same clientele.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 00:52

And especially in Venice, I mean, it’s a walking city, you don’t buy tyres for a car but you buy good shoes because I have to walk. I think the city is made to measure to the humans, for me.

Sarah Monk: 01:08

Hi, this is Sarah with another episode of Materially Speaking, where artists and artisans tell their stories through the materials they choose. In the second of our Venice series, Mike Axon and I are meeting Austrian born shoemaker, Gabriele Gmeiner. As we set off, a trolley rumbles by bearing bread, and then another carrying bottles. A man trudges over with a cart to fetch some crates of vegetables from a passing boat and wheel them back to his restaurant. This is a city on foot.

Sarah Monk: 01:39

As we make the last tight turn into Gabriele’s courtyard, we find her sitting at a large wooden desk in her shop window, wearing a work apron and smiling. A shoe is jammed between her knees as she files the base of it. In front of her are a wide selection of hammers, tapes, knives and glues. Leather ribbons are stapled on the walls with dozens of wooden handled tools slotted inside their curves. Suspended above her head is a forest of wooden shoe lasts.

Sarah Monk: 02:17

Can I ask you to tell us your name and what you do?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 02:21

My name is Gabriele Gmeiner and I am a shoemaker. I was born in Austria in a small city called Bregenz, which is on the Lake of Constance in the West Of Austria, close to the Swiss border.

Sarah Monk: 02:37

Was shoemaking something that your family did?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 02:40

Actually, there was a grand grand uncle but I’ve never met him when he was alive.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 02:49

So when he died, the relatives, they said to my father, you’re doctor, isn’t you making shoes? Wouldn’t you be interested in in having his tools and certain things? I went to see and he was actually years years ago a good shoemaker. Then of course he ended up on in repairing shoes like everybody did in the seventies, sixties, seventies.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 03:14

Nobody wants to have made handmade shoes. I have this working bench here and I found really interesting old materials, handmade nails and especially for shoes, nice tools and it was a nice heritage.

Sarah Monk: 03:37

So how about your childhood and your education? What sort of things were you interested in then?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 03:42

It was a free childhood in nature. It’s countryside there And, I got interested in school and art and making sculptures, which I also did during the school time. And I also was orientated in languages, so that already prepared my way then to move freely in the whole of Europe.

Sarah Monk: 04:08

And how did the decision come about to make shoes?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 04:13

I was very much into arts and I was doing sculptures and clay and any kind of materials. I was experimenting and my thoughts were no one of my family has been an artist and doing arts just for the art’s sake. So I decided to to make something applied, some applied art, which is a via di mezzo. It’s a halfway through and I built up a whole philosophy about what is the shoe, how does the shoe influence on the human being. So, if I create a sculpture for the feet, how does it influence of in the movement and well-being and what is the shoe today?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 05:00

It’s the basement of our modern living. So it was very complex and and actually I said, oh, I wanna make portraits of, very detailed for the persons and I will work for. And, yeah, that was the initial idea.

Speaker 3: 05:21

How old were you when you came up

Sarah Monk: 05:23

with this philosophy of shoemaking?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 05:26

That was about, when I was 18, something like that. And then I already started looking for a place where to learn the techniques. And I first went to to Vienna to the old master shoemakers, and they they were all dusty and rigid actually, and I said, oh, no. No. It’s no trade for ladies.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 05:48

And I said, oh, dear. I was desperate. There was a a lady doing from from London doing costume designer, Nikki Gillibrand. And she said, oh, there was a school in London. You should should have a look there.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 06:04

The school specialized in shoemaking. So that’s how I started really to get into the craft.

Sarah Monk: 06:12

So you came to London when?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 06:15

When I was 19. So ‘91.

Sarah Monk: 06:24

And what

Gabriele Gmeiner: 06:25

was the number was the called Weiner’s College and that was in Hackney at the time. And I, got inscribed in in this, technical shoemaking course. That was a two years course. And it was great because, I had a really nice overview of the of shoemaking. So but then as the school was rather specialized in in preparing the students for the industrial

Sarah Monk: 06:56

The commercial side.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 06:58

Commercial. Yeah, industrial production of shoes. I tried to find my way in in in in what I was looking for in the hand making and the very personal shoe making. And I found I found also the companies, the workshops in London making such shoes, of course. I had the chance to work on all the details, like making a shoes really it’s it’s composed by different professions.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 07:26

So there is the last maker, there is the pattern maker, there is the clicker. The clicker, very special term. They are cutting the leather and then there is the upper sour. So, I could really experiment with it all, and the good thing at school is that you can make errors. You can experiment.

Speaker 3: 07:48

So if there is all these different professions within shoe making, do you do all of them?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 07:53

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a quite holistic thingy, but that’s part of me because every step makes part of creating, I think. So, making the last, I’m already thinking of, how many layers I have to add, how can I add the layers, so what’s coming out at the end?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 08:15

So each step influences on on the shape, on on the outcome of the shoe. Yeah.

Sarah Monk: 08:22

Wow. So what was the step after Cordwainers?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 08:26

After Cordwainers, I did some work experiences. I went to John Lobb as well. I did some months there. I did some holiday substitutions, and I went to the home workers. So John Lobb, they work with people that have their own workshop, and they would send them the material and the work to do to them, and they would send it back.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 08:51

So they they’re not all all the people working for John Lofton as all sitting at Sunshine Street. So I went to one of them, and that was in Tottenham up north near near Manchester. And I could realize issue with their help, and I did these kind of work experiences.

Sarah Monk: 09:14

So we’re sitting in Venice. How did you get to be here?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 09:19

I was traveling about to learn and then the ten years of learning process. So there was London, then I was in Paris as well. There was a school specializing in in hand sewing directly related to Hermes, the saddlery sewing. And in between that, I also realized autonomously private art projects. Just to give you a short description is like, the first one was coming back from Vienna.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 09:54

I went to the place I’m coming from. It was a very countryside place and apparently not very much culture. So I was trying to make a research about still the old crafts in the region and the materials they used to the farmers to create shoes or or anything else. And I used these materials to create four pairs of shoes, which were portraits of personalities from literature.

Speaker 3: 10:30

Another question. How would you describe your aesthetic, your design, your philosophy of design?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 10:37

It’s very very classic. And I think it varies really from person to person. I’m trying to to get also the person’s wishes. I mean, what they they want to have the shoes for, but, the aesthetic in in itself, I think it’s all about proportions. It’s all about now if a customer has a difficult foot, so many of us we have difficult feet, I want to portray this foot to gain the measurements but I have a really nice aesthetic shoe coming out.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 11:14

And that that varies really from foot to foot and it’s all about proportions. So my creativity now is it’s not that much anymore about experimenting materials, it’s it’s about finding the right proportions in thicknesses, distances, curves, one millimeter here or one there. I mean, it’s such a small object, a shoe, far smaller than a house would be. So one millimeter more or less, it changes the aesthetic. So it’s all about that.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 11:50

But it’s very classic.

Sarah Monk: 11:52

Great. I think that takes us on beautifully to the process of making a shoe. Can you tell us what happens from someone expressing an interest in having a pair of your shoes?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 12:05

Well, would start with the measurements, of course. And just taking the measurements, it’s and and talking about the foot, it takes about one hour. So the person would come here and I take the measurements when the person is seated and there is just a part of the pressure on the foot and then standing as well with the whole of the pressure, so that sometimes changes a lot to measurements, sometimes it does not. So that depends on the consistency of the muscles, the tendons, the foot. And we would talk about sensibilities of the feet or, I would check, some the all the shape of the foot and the arch and and then we would talk about what the customer expects of the outcome, if he wants a very elegant shoe, if he wants an elegant but everyday shoe or if he wants a rather casual shoes.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 13:07

So I’m trying to get the person to collaborate, to get involved because it’s not a ready made product, see it, take it, go away with it. So the more I can get the person to work with me, the more happier I am really. And once we stabilized all that information, I would start making the last. So here I get back to my origins in making sketches. I would order a rough cut of the last, which has the basic measurements included, and then I would work on it to get to the measurements of the person.

Sarah Monk: 13:46

Can I just ask you to explain what a last is?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 13:49

The last is a wooden shape, which is the positive representation of the foot and I would make the negative, I think. What is it? I would build the shoe around the last and then the last is taken out and it represents the foot actually, but it’s not the foot, it’s

Sarah Monk: 14:12

These are last, are they?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:14

Yeah. They are hanging above me. Yeah.

Sarah Monk: 14:19

And what are they made of?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:21

Of beechwood. It it has to be hardwood because we are beating a lot on it. So to to force the leather in into its shape, we’re also helping with the hammering.

Speaker 3: 14:33

I love that you talked about it as a negative and positive, almost like photography.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:38

Yeah. It is. It is. Really. And the last, they stay with me as the negative stay with the photographer.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:46

Sometimes people ask, oh, well, can we take the shoe last with us? No. No. No. That’s the in the Rito Del Torre.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:53

That’s it stays with me as the negative stays, but the problem.

Speaker 3: 14:56

Is that the intellectual property?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 14:59

Yeah. Okay. So we have a last. I’ve come

Sarah Monk: 15:02

in and I’ve been measured for a last. What happens next? And can I ask you to explain the materials as we go?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 15:08

So the next step would be that I make a test pair. It’s a proper shoe really. It’s made with second choice materials and sometimes also recycled materials, but it’s a working shoe I say because the customer has to wear it to find out if everything is as it should be. So that’s for new customers. The risk of having errors in the making of the last is about 20%, sometimes more.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 15:42

So doing this gives the guarantee that we get to a 100% really nice fit.

Sarah Monk: 15:48

When you say second choice materials, can you give us some examples?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 15:53

Talking about the skin of a boxcarf. So the whole skin of the boxcarf, I can gain like two, sometimes three pair of first choice material, which I would cut out on the back of the animal. So going towards the belly and the neck, the fibers of the of the leather get looser because on the animal, is more movement on the on the belly and also on the neck and more fat inclusions among among the fibers, so that loosens the structure. For the first choice material, I want to have a really tight structure that doesn’t move too much because I would pull it then on the last and it should not move anymore once it’s on there because the leather, it doesn’t have to give way to the foot because I have already the last made in the right measurements, so it shouldn’t change anymore.

Sarah Monk: 16:55

Where do you source your leathers?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 16:57

The boxcarf leather I get from France. There is a wholesaler in Milan I contact for. Then the sole leather I actually changed quite recently. I found this very near tannery. It’s it’s in the area of Pordenone, Portia.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 17:21

It’s Prissot, and it’s a traditional company. But, there are three two brothers and, young woman conducting the company and it’s a very nice it’s a very sustainable way of looking at this archaic products, really. They have a winning price is about, no waste, so they have a whole recycling of the water, making their own energy for the machines. It’s a all natural product, and they have, like, from other continents from Africa having a proper contract. They have the chance to have their own garden cultivating vegetables and having chicken for the eggs.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 18:15

And so it’s very very up up to date, this company. I think it’s very sensitive the way they bring it in these times. And I got this and it’s really good leather and that’s for the soles, and for the reinforcements. Then, special, leathers I get, like the cordovan leather, there is this company in almost in the city of Chicago producing horse leather, and it’s a very special way of treatment because they they would color it still by hand. It’s a it’s a craft crafts process there.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 18:56

And they work in waxes and, oils. And, it’s a quite beautiful product. It’s the luxury of today. As as the customers, they do not seek any alligators anymore or reptiles in general. If they want to do something special which costs a little more, they would choose a cordovan leather.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 19:23

It’s got a very beautiful shine as it is, like a suede leather even though it doesn’t look like suede because it’s flat and shiny. But the structure is the how you turn it, the light reflects differently. So you have a very nice reflecting game on the color that makes it so beautiful.

Sarah Monk: 19:48

Can you tell us about the technical process then of making?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 19:54

Well, the test pair, it’s fairly quickly done. It’s just stuck on sole and you’ve got a cork heel, but then the definite pair, it’s all it’s on on the last. So we prepare the insole, that’s the sole touching the foot. We have to cut out a kind of wall through which you can later sew on the welt and connect like this, the upper with the insole. I have to decide the position of the foot.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 20:32

If I give some more width on the outside to sustain the foot to bring it into a better position or other things, or if I want to reinforce the arch, the length arch. And already this is very personal. And, then I would make the patterns. We cut materials, sew it together on quite old machines, but perfectly working machines. They’re still working with pedaling.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 21:09

And, then I would pull the upper, so I have I have the upper, which is made with the outer leather and the lining leather, and then we prepare the reinforcements, so the back of the shoe and the front of the shoe, the toe, they’re always very stiff. So we prepare these, we cut them out from the sole leather and we make them thinner, we skive them with a clicking knife or with a skiving knife, actually. And all these materials now are worked in wet condition. Humid. Humid.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 21:48

So the leather normally stiff, it gets soft when it’s humid. And then I would pull it over with the lasting pincers and as I said before, I have to pull to the maximum extension. It must not move anymore. I fix it with, nails, and I would replace the nails with the seam of the welt. The welt is a is a thin, long, piece of, leather, always talking about the thick sole leather, that makes a frame, a frame around the shoe.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 22:31

I had the little wall already made, the insole, the lining, the reinforcement, the upper, and the well. So that’s the shoe as it will stay for a very long time that the person wants to wear it. The sole can be replaced as it needs to be. So once the customer has a hole in the sole, the shoe comes back to me. I will put the last inside the shoe again and sew the sole through the same holes again.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 23:05

And the shoe is getting new. Actually, it’s getting more and more beautiful wearing it and having a partner. And, of course, I forgot to talk about the heel. the heel is made with, different layers of the sewn leather still, attaching each layer with a there’s a vegetable glue and little wooden tacks. So we we’d make the hole first and place then the wooden tack inside.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 23:35

And also here, it’s still sculpting really, especially making a ladies heel. A ladies heel is not just a straight heel, but you have nice curves and everything. So that’s about the process. In the end, we have to take off the last and give space to the foot. And once the foot gets into it, it goes creates a kind of vacuum.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:02

Yeah, really. That’s it’s true. It’s true. The customers are always surprised when it happens. It’s beautiful.

Speaker 3: 24:15

Yeah. That must be a very

Sarah Monk: 24:16

satisfying moment.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:20

That

Speaker 3: 24:22

means you’ve done it perfectly.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:24

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And what sort of time does it take?

Sarah Monk: 24:30

I’m sure they vary but.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:31

Yeah. What sort of time for a pair? Give an average amount of time of about eighty hours, about two weeks of time.

Sarah Monk: 24:39

And do you make your own shoes?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:40

I do. I do. That was a kind of commitment since I have my own workshop. So since twenty years, I have to wear my own shoes.

Sarah Monk: 24:49

And your family?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 24:51

Yeah. My my husband, he has. I have shoes made by me. I was trying to make shoes for my little boy. And at a certain time, it doesn’t it didn’t work anymore.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 25:02

So I think children fast, don’t they? Yeah. Yeah. Also, they have other needs really. So I did nice pair of kind of sandals for him, and he was, like, making a short sprint off of a couple of meters and stopping, and it didn’t work.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 25:22

I said, no, mama. This doesn’t work. They are not sporty enough. I think they need a very soft and rubber sole rather than a leather construction, I think. That’s fair enough.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 25:34

One day, he would want a pair of shoes maybe, being bigger.

Speaker 3: 25:40

So I wanted to just come back to the idea of of Venice. Yeah. How did you end up here, what does it mean that you’re here? What’s the significance of you being in Venice with your your profession?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 25:52

I was working for a shoemaker, and then I went away and came back because I wanted to make an exhibition in his workshop. I had another project in Japan, realized, and and that was the moment that he wanted to get rid of his workshop. He he asked me, do you want to take over? There is another person interested. Why don’t you do it together?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 26:15

And I said, well, I think about it, and and actually, we found out that the other person, we would have different ideas, and it wouldn’t work. But in this time, I was helping him as well to get to an end his orders and, in this time, I found this, my workshop. It was vacant and I could rent it. Yeah. And I said, why not Venice?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 26:42

So, I think I was quite interested. I never said, oh, one day I want to make, be a shoemaker in Venice. No. It happened to be because also many friends of mine, Venetians, they wanted this to happen. And I think I would have never done it on my own, just one person.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 27:00

It’s not a singular construction of the whole thing. So everybody was kind of helping and then, oh, yeah, they wanted it to happen and so it did. And I didn’t expect anything and then I found myself in the workshop. Said, okay. Let’s do it here.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 27:19

And, yeah, I think the Venetians, they need such realities and, and I also need Venice. I mean, it’s not a metropole like London or or Paris, where you have the customers living there, I am working with tourism. I’m working for for people coming from abroad. And I think it’s a very nice solution really. Not being a metropole, the living conditions in Venice are much better than they would be in London or Paris.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 27:56

It’s it’s much easier to live in Venice, but still I can work with the same clientele. And especially in Venice. Mean, that’s the walking city. You don’t buy tires for the for the car but you buy good shoes because you have to walk. And it’s I think the city is made to measure to the humans.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 28:18

For me, it made the same noise kind of.

Speaker 3: 28:24

Are there other shoemakers in Venice?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 28:26

There are. Yeah. We are three ladies. Three ladies making shoes, each of us as their own ideas and, very nice products. It’s still a lot, I think, being anyway, nowadays, it’s a very small city, but still having three hand making shoemakers, it’s quite exceptional.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 28:46

But you’ve obviously got a

Sarah Monk: 28:48

lot of heart for sharing your skills. Do you share the skills in other ways?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 28:53

All the time really. I always have young people working with me, trainees, staying more or less. Recently, I have, exchanges from Erasmus, people coming from Slovenia, Austria, France as well. So, I’ve always had people working with me except of the pandemic here. One, I didn’t have anybody.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 29:21

And then I’m teaching. I different teaching experiences in various universities. Latest, it was in Venice University. They have the fashion department, shoe and accessories workshop, and, I think it’s great.

Sarah Monk: 29:40

I’m curious because shoes have become such potent symbols recently with with refugees and sometimes protests.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 29:50

I quite liked I went to Rwanda once. I had workshop there as well, teaching to European students in Rwanda but with a Rwandan craftsman. And, I liked it because, these African countries, are flooded with, Chinese industrial products. So the common shoes there would be the plastic sandals, but the beauty there is that they recycle the plastic. They they would repair them and they make the most beautiful things with them.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 30:29

I mean, actually, our terms, these products are not repairable. We use them to throw them away, but they would care for them as we do here for a made to measure shoe almost. They really get the best out of it and and for the longest possible.

Sarah Monk: 30:50

Have you made a pair of shoes for someone and recognized how important to them it was?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 30:59

Yes, of course. It happened several times to me. I’m also working for the Salzburg Festival, and they make, made to measure dresses, hats, wigs, and shoes. So I’m going there every year in the month of July. And we make, made to measure shoes for the solo singers mainly, but also for exceptional productions, I mean.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 31:26

And there, I could tell that they have very particular needs. They have to feel first. They have to feel very well in their shoes. And sometimes, exactly this fundament is so important to once I had this very small lady, I don’t even remember her name, she was a great singer. She had a little difficult feet, but anyway, she was working very hard with me to get it right.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 31:53

And then she would plant their feet on the stage and push out this enormous voice from this little lady and and it was so important for her to have this earth link or earth link, it’s not earth but it’s a stage link with the shoes. And if this wouldn’t be right, she wouldn’t be able to concentrate and give her best really. And it was especially for her and also for others, very important. So that’s why there they still offer this service of made to measure shoes at the Salzburg Festival. Also the sustain of the holding of the feet.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 32:37

There was another thing actually. She wanted it tighter than I expected it, to make. I would have given her more freedom, but she wanted it tighter tighter tighter tighter. And again, this tightness on her feet and she was bringing out the her best. I’m talking about two different people, but so it’s it’s very important for these personalities, singers to have a particular footwear.

Speaker 3: 33:06

It’s amazing just to think. Did you watch their performances?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 33:10

I do. I do. I have to. I’m very lucky to have to. It’s the general rehearsal we watch.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 33:19

So all the people working for the workshop day they have to see it. I think it’s very important to see.

Speaker 3: 33:28

We recorded some sounds of Venice, and we recorded the footsteps of people going over the bridges. And I noticed there was no no women were wearing heels. There was no heels. And heels make a nice sound, so I wanted to to get some, but no heels.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 33:45

Well, yeah. It you know, walking nicely in Venice with the heels. You have these stones and you get in between and you have the many bridges. It’s not it’s not fun. So ladies going for a cocktail meeting, they they would bring their high heels in the in the bag and would changes just change them just before entering.

Gabriele Gmeiner: 34:07

But then there is a little anecdote. So I’m living around the corner here and my landlord, he was a a baron, a noble, and we were twice invited in his home and he was already blind. He was actually composer of modern music and he quite liked the idea to rent the apartment to a craftsman. Came by every now and then and once he brought us to the door and said, oh, yeah, You have certainly made to measure shoes. And he had as well and he said, you know what the difference is?

Gabriele Gmeiner: 34:45

It’s a sound when you click the heels one to each other this one. And that’s the difference. And he said, well, I do this well. We both click So that’s the sound of the heel of the Materially Shoe.

Sarah Monk: 35:12

So thanks to Gabriele Gmeiner for sharing her story. You can discover more on her website, gabrielegmeiner.com, or on Instagram, gabrielegmeiner. And thanks to you for listening. As with all episodes, you can find photographs of the work discussed on our website, materiallyspeaking.com, and on Instagram. If you’re enjoying Materially Speaking, please subscribe to our newsletter on our website so we can let you know when the next episode goes live.