A New Foot Forward: Misawa Noriyuki / Shoemaker, Artist

"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is shoemaker and artist Misawa Noriyuki.

Misawa handmakes his shoes using methods that are over a century old.

Every pair is completely custom-made and one-of-a-kind.

He has clients around the world, including Hollywood celebrities.

Misawa also draws on his exceptional skills

to create shoe-themed works of art.

This innovative sculpture won a prize this year

at a global footwear competition.

We asked Misawa about his work,

and how he balances a respect for tradition

with a quest for "new shoe art."

I want to create entirely new shoes,

shoes that no one else could make.

I'm an artisan.

That means that if something interests me as an artist,

I can execute it at a high level.

As a shoemaker, when I make a shoe,

I can use the design instincts

that I've developed through my knowledge of art into the shoe.

So I would say that there are positive effects

for both elements of my work.

Arakawa, Tokyo.

This is Misawa's workshop.

From the initial sketches to the finishing touches,

he produces his footwear almost entirely by himself.

Handmade, custom-made,

and crafted using techniques passed down for a century.

The entire process involves more than 100 steps.

One of the most difficult steps is the shaping of the shoe,

which involves sticking the leather to a wooden last or frame.

He feels out the leather before stretching it taut.

It takes great skill and experience

to craft an elegant shape without any bumps or wrinkles.

If you have a high level of technique,

you're able to do countless things that machines simply can't.

If your material is a type of skin,

bear in mind that the skin came from a living thing,

so each piece is different, even across the same piece.

Machines just aren't capable of understanding that.

They treat all leathers the same.

In that respect, working by hand is superior.

On one hand, the technology for shoes like sneakers keeps advancing.

But as for me personally,

my techniques, my career, my ideas,

I pursue the type of shoemaking that only I can do.

Misawa makes an impressive range of shoes,

from classic men's loafers to cutting-edge women's boots.

His designs are creative and playful,

based on tradition but not bound by it.

A client has come for a fitting.

Misawa is in the process of producing her custom-made shoes.

The client says it's love at first sight.

The heart-shaped tongues are adorable, and the balance is exquisite.

Misawa checks the fit by hand,

making judgments based on past experience.

He takes what he learns, and moves forward with the production.

The shoes will be ready in three months' time.

They're cute and feminine, but also dignified.

I wanted shoes that capture the person I aspire to be.

Shoes that would help create the world I want to see.

The most important thing is that the shoe has a good fit.

But then even if it fits, if the shape isn't beautiful,

you can see the client's smile start to fade away.

You can easily see in their face

whether they have that excited sparkle or not.

In the world of men's shoes, the styles are rigid.

In contrast, the world of women's shoes

doesn't really have that many rules.

With women's shoes,

I've found that it's easier to incorporate my personal aesthetic

that I've developed through my art.

Misawa makes shoes to wear, but he also creates "art shoes."

The key concept for this futuristic footwear was "ride."

In this playful piece,

a mouse has chewed some holes in the elegant shape of a classic boot.

These bold artworks prove that boots aren't just made for walking.

For me, the most important thing is the shape, the appearance.

Shoes are a collection of complex curves.

They're shaped like nothing else, and that fascinates me.

I realized that if I made pieces based on that idea,

wouldn't they be worthy of the name of art?

Wouldn't they be craft objects?

Art doesn't have any limits.

So if I could incorporate that limitless freedom into shoemaking,

I could create entirely new types of shoes.

In 2022, one of Misawa's pieces was a "Special Overall Winner"

at the Global Footwear Awards held in the US.

Layers of cowhide leather form a negative space,

a silhouette of a woman's leg in a high heel.

It was praised as "a new interpretation of the shoe."

At the beginning of COVID-19, Japan was close to a lockdown.

We weren't supposed to go outside,

and so we didn't have to wear shoes.

It was pretty awful.

And it really got me thinking about the future of shoes.

I wondered, could I offer a new way for shoes to provide value?

And I realized that a shoe didn't have to be worn and walked in.

It could be a tool, an art object,

a decoration in your home for just putting your foot in.

I had that realization.

Misawa has always been creative.

He says as a child he loved building and drawing things.

In his third year of university,

he was talking with the manager of a shoe store he frequented.

The manager suggested that he try shoemaking.

After college, Misawa enrolled at a shoemaking vocational school,

then apprenticed with a cobbler for seven years.

I had no idea what making shoes even meant.

I was like, "Wait, I can make a shoe?"

But after that, making shoes was all I could think about.

I got so into it.

I was making shoes from morning to night.

I kept learning new skills and expanding my knowledge.

Every day was just pure fun.

In 2009, wanting to strike out on his own,

Misawa left the workshop and moved to Vienna,

a city full of history and the arts.

I thought if I increased my skill as an artisan,

then I would be able to create shoes that really represented me.

But that didn't happen at all.

I just couldn't do it.

I could make pretty copies, but I couldn't draw original curves.

I had spent my 20s doing nothing but shoes.

I realized I hadn't ever been on an airplane.

My world was just so small.

So the straightforward answer to that was to go abroad.

Misawa found work at a famous old footwear store in Vienna,

and in 2010 he won a gold medal in a technical shoemaking contest.

Meanwhile, he made a concerted effort to become more cultured,

visiting museums and talking with artists.

One artist in particular, an avant-garde shoe designer,

had a huge influence on Misawa

and his quest to bring art into his shoes.

That designer was determined to create shoes

that only they could make.

They had really idiosyncratic ideas that I could never come up with.

Shoes can be made with so much freedom.

I realized how narrow my vision of footwear had been.

It was a revelation.

At the same time,

I did love the shoemaking I had been doing for the past decade,

and I believed those were the finest quality works.

So I thought I could use those as the foundation of a new chapter,

making shoes more like a designer.

Misawa came home to Japan and opened his workshop,

making traditional shoes

while also honing this new artisanal fusion of footwear and fine art.

In 2017, he held his first solo show outside Japan, in New York City.

It featured a common theme, Japanese beauty.

These boots feature a lion motif in traditional gold leaf,

inspired by Buddhist temples.

The exhibition was a success,

and Misawa earned a reputation as an artist.

People were looking at the different pieces,

talking and smiling and enjoying themselves.

The fact that I succeeded in Chelsea,

where all the hottest new art is shown,

gave me confidence that I could go out there in the world

and show my art, and it would be okay.

One of Misawa's key themes is sound.

In 2018, he began crafting shoes for Kumagai Kazunori,

a tap dancer who performed at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.

Making shoes that needed to have a certain sound

inspired Misawa's subsequent work.

I had this misconception that as long as the shoes were comfortable

and the fit was good, any entertainer would be happy with them.

But he wasn't looking for comfort.

He wanted the shoes to make a certain sound.

The shoes were an instrument.

A pair of shoes can make music.

That experience broadened my perspective about what was possible.

For ten years now, on top of his own work,

Misawa has taught others the art of traditional shoemaking.

He currently has about 70 students,

from interested amateurs to aspiring professionals.

You can express yourself with handmade shoes. That's the appeal.

I want to create shoes that give off a certain atmosphere.

If I can create more and more shoes together with these young people,

I believe we can change the future of footwear.

Misawa hopes to continue crafting his own unique art.

He's considering a new theme.

Feudal warlords of Japan, in particular Date Masamune,

who ruled the part of Japan that Misawa is from.

He pays a visit to Masamune's mausoleum,

hoping for creative inspiration.

Whatever kind of design you're doing,

first pick your focus, a person, a thing,

and really home in on it.

Then the design, or the shape or the line will come to you.

This has been the most difficult subject I've ever tackled.

Such a prominent figure.

Something that feels completely new visually,

but it's also obvious to the viewer that it's Date Masamune.

It's a challenge.

But when it all falls into place,

when it all clicks,

in that moment, I think that it's hard to beat that feeling,

that sense of satisfaction.

It's worth the suffering.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"Put limits on your life."

My goal is to create shoes that will go down in history.

And I believe I won't be able to succeed if I'm half-hearted about it.

I think I can succeed if I devote all my time to shoemaking,

if I set certain conditions so that I can solely focus on my craft.

I would say that I don't need anything else in my life.

This is my life, nothing else.