In 1938, at Munich time, there was no employment inside the village of Killyleagh in Northern Ireland for twelve years. An abandoned flax mill turned into the most effective signal that the inhabitants had ever lived in whatever but absolute poverty. But in that 12 months Czech brothers known as Erik and Gerhard Utitz began within the abandoned flax mill, a branch of the tannery which have been their family enterprise in Prague when you consider that 1795; exports from Prague had stopped, and this was an try to keep their trade with Great Britain.
When Hitler marched into Prague the Utitz brothers slipped out, abandoning lock, stock, and barrel, however taking with them just one professional tanner. The little department in the transformed flax mill became the primary tannery for Uta suède. The villagers now not simplest needed to be taught a wholly new form of paintings; they needed to learn to work at all: twelve years of general unemployment had bred overall depression. To hope, at that point, to have 60 professional workers within two years appeared simply a piece of Utitz optimism; yet now 400 ladies and men paintings on the tannery, coming in by bus from a 10-mile radius around Killyleagh.
And out from Killyleagh is going suède to all of the leading makers of footwear on the Rome-Paris-London fashion axis. For suède is pervading all of the high fashion locations. This is partially due to the trend for shoes to healthy the clothes with which they’re worn; suède may be produced within the best subtleties of color. Again, it’s far partly because of the femininity of to-day’s fashions; suède, while it’s far made from youngster leather-based, is a gentle, almost sensual cloth; flexible, supple, lending itself to the most tricky designs for the maximum elegant shoes. And another time, the pervasion of suède is in a few components because of the chrome-tanning manner at Killyleagh, which produces suède containing no resin and without a plastic floor (the foot can, so to talk, breathe); and which, within the new Uta-profit model, is water-repellent – after wearing in the moist it best has to be sponged or brushed with a completely smooth brush.
Pastel, peach-bloom, and mushroom crimson suèdes made the maximum charming shoes for this maximum uncharming summer season. Autumn hues are riper, richer: berry purple, leaf browns, ripe plums, lush black. Shoes themselves have taken on a medieval turn. There is a hint of medieval Venice within the lengthy, slender escarpin from the Dior-Delman series in Paris; of medieval England within the metropolis bootee, half-way among a shoe and a boot, designed by means of Charles Creed to go along with his autumn series.
It is a relatively latest improvement for the London couturiers to collaborate with shoe manufacturers. Michael, for his autumn series, designed suède footwear, made by means of Norvic, with what he knew as a greyhound appearance – the last word and ultra-modern line in tapering slenderness… Ft introduced to a first-rate point, heels to a slim spike. Mattli confirmed suède shoes he had designed for Saxone in a brand new bluish-beige Uta color; Hardy Amies, John Cavanagh, Norman Hartnell, and Digby Morton all designed footwear executed by Rayne, one of the new Associate Members of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers.
Mr. Edward Rayne reported himself curious about the completely sparkling outlook given to shoe designing by means of those 4 dressmakers. The shoes are actually inside the shops, and the clients will want to be fascinated too, for they price twelve guineas a couple. They are known as the Rayne Couture C0llection, and are being produced in what’s known as a “restrained version.” But for folks that themselves have limited buying strength, the Miss Rayne Collection at five guineas will commend itself most warmly.
Miss Rayne, a legendary charmer, is not the situation to unreasonable flights of foolishness. Her shoes are quite and youthful, yet contrive to be realistic in addition to seductive. There are low-cut, instantly-vamped pumps in the vibrant colored glacé child, with toddler Louis heels; and there is city strolling footwear of soft cork-grained leather-based, with a brogue tongue wrappings over the vamp. And there’s a particularly captivating model of the traditional black suède court docket shoe – or pump, as it’s miles now known as. We listen an amazing deal about “the little black get dressed” as a crucial of every fashionable woman’s wardrobe; however, it’s for the pair of well-bred, slender-heeled black pumps which ensures that the inspiration of a properly-dressed look is properly and in reality laid.
