Grandpa’s apron derbys gets restored.

These shoes belonged to the customers grandfather, and carry a high senimental value. Customer wanted me to restore them to the best possible shape, and we gave them a budget of ca 400€-450€. I replaced the heel counters with new ones in leather and new backlinings. New foot beds in leather and new welts and leather soles. The big question mark was the uppers. The leather was REALLY dry, and I wasn’t sure if they could be saved. I needed to rebuild them to some structural strength before I could start working on the uppers, because I wanted to wash them. Had I washed them as pieces of leather they could have lost their shape and shrunk. So I had to do quite a lot of work before I would know more about the possibility to rescue the uppers. I think they turned out OK, and hopefully the customer can get many more years out of these shoes. But they will require a lot of maintenance since the leather was so dry.