Kan skor flyga? : Ett examensarbete om skor

Sammanfattning: My dream is to work as a shoe designer. Due to this I wanted to learn ”everything” about shoes in my degree project. I was hoping to get in touch with a company so I could design a small collection of shoes, and I found the company Kavat in Kumla which developes and manufactures children’s shoes. Though I wanted my product to be a part of the next summer collection, I had to hurry up with the task and make the deeper research in a second place. The first part of this report is for this reason about the job I did for Kavat and the second part is a research about development and manufacturing of shoes, the history of shoemaking and also the history of shoe fashion. The task was to design a small collection of baby shoes that was to suit for a given last and it would be included in the summer collection of 2006. The purpose was to offer small children practical and funny shoes and also design shoes that fitted both boys and girls. Shoes have been manufactured in the factory in Kumla since 1945 and today it is one of the last manufacturers in Sweden. Kavat’s target group is children between 0-5 years and it is a genuin trademark with high quality demands. On the market today we can see typical groups of shoes like sportshoes and it is common with big differences between boys’ and girls’ shoes. To get inspired I looked at both children’s shoes and shoes for adults. I also found inspiration in clothes and toys. To get the collection mutually connected a theme was to be used and some examples was insects and fairytales. I sketched a lot of ideas and send them to Kumla and when I visited the factory a second time we made a prototype of one of my sketches. Though the time was running we could not realize further ideas but instead we developed the one we had made so it became perfect. The result was a pair of playful sandals and I chose four colours that wasn’t typical for boys or girls. This was changed after I had gone and they chose one red and one blue colour instead. The reaction from the retailers was that they looked nice and funny but they were a little too daring, but yet they sold in 800 copys. I am satisfied with my sandals and I really think people will see them among all the other shoes in the stores. After reading a lot of books about shoes and visiting at two shoe companys and one museum, I have managed to compile a material about development and manufacturing of shoes, the history of the shoe industry and the history of shoe fashion. It wasn’t easy to find good litterature about shoemaking but I finally found a few books that was useful. Now I know the fundamental skills but probably it damands a lot of experience to be able to manufacture shoes in a good way. The educational visit at Ericsson & Saether gave a lot of information about what the branch of shoes looks like today with companys that just decide what the shoes will look like and then they orders everything from Asia. My reflection is that companys looks in a short perspective when they just buys the cheapest things, and don’t go in for durable marketing with reliable trademarks and just manufacturing.