There is a new must have in the fashion universe, but it's not a trendy piece to add to your personal wardrobe, but something for your library and your working desk - the Fashionary Shoe Design Book and Shoe Sketchbook.
The latest releases by Penter Yip, the Fashionary founder, and his team, focus indeed on a key accessory and do so in a unique way.
The Shoe Design Book is the first proper footwear encyclopedia ever released: a functional handbook for footwear designer and shoe enthusiasts, this practical volume (USD 39.90) is divided in three major sections - Shoe Style Library, Shoe Encyclopedia and Shoe Last Templates.
In roughly 150 pages, every aspect relating to feet, footwear and shoes (yes, believe it or not, every single aspect...) is concisely and elegantly analysed.
The volume opens with a library of details (toe shapes and heel types) and shoes, and then reviews historical shoes, sneakers and designer footwear (the selection goes from Ancient Egypt to Valentino, Alexander McQueen and Iris Van Herpen, just to mention a few ones - as a whole, there are over 300 styles in these pages).
Topics such as anatomy of the foot, of the shoe last and of the shoe are interpreted in detail, followed by extensive sections on measurements, manufacturing, and construction, a leather overview, and key information on care, maintenance and shoe labels.
An extensive section with shoe templates allows instead footwear designers (or fans...) to quickly sketch men and women's shoes, boots and athletic footwear.
The Shoe Sketchbook (A5 size, 160 Pages, USD 24.90) includes instead essential footwear information, 60 shoe templates (from flats to 6 inch heels, from sneakers to pumps...) plus 12 shoe last templates in multi-angle views for a better drawing experience and from different heel heights, toe shapes and footwear types.
"While working on these products we discovered there are certainly many books on the market about footwear design, but very few of them focus on the practical need of designers - shoe templates," Penter Yip told Irenebrination via email.
"The core value of our brand is to provide fashion designers with a tool to quickly and efficiently sketch detailed ideas, so we created different kinds of templates in multi-angle and we included a mini-shoe encyclopedia as well as a reference. We worked with shoe designers and shoe makers to help improving the information and templates and relied on technology such as 3D modelling to create the shoe last templates in different views, as you can also see on our Instagram page."
The Fashionary went from strength to strength since it was first launched in 2008: Penter Yip and his team developed a proper collection of stationery for fashion designers including classic diaries with Men and Womenswear templates, foldable sketch pads in various sizes, elegant notebooks developed in collaboration with fashion designers or issued in special editions.
Yet there is a very simple explanation behind this success - the extensive research that goes into each product. "We spent a huge amount of time researching and developing the idea for the shoe book and sketchbook from scratch," Penter Yip states.
"It took us one year to make this happen, but it was worth it: we are pleased with the product, but, judging from the amazing feedback we are getting on the Shoe Design products, so are our fans and that's simply great!"
The Fashionary Shoe Design Book and Sketchbook are available from the Fashionary shop or from selected bookshops all over the world. You can keep updated on the latest Fashionary releases by checking out its blog, Facebook or Instagram pages. All images/videos in this post courtesy of Penter Yip/Fashionary.
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