74 ITALIA! November 2016DISCOVER ITALIA!
is busy at their desks cutting and glueing shoe patterns
under the attentive supervision of two tutors.
“It was all about Derby shoes these past few days,”
explains 28-year-old Asia, “I think I learned pretty much
everything about them,” she laughs. Asia was not new to
the world of shoes, having previously completed a masters
in footwear and bag design and having worked in a design
studio for footwear afterwards. Still, she felt something
was missing: “I had a lack of knowledge in pattern-
making, which is very important if you are a designer. It
was time to fill in the gaps, so I enrolled in the course.
It’s been great so far – two teachers for a group of eight
students, that’s almost like a one-to-one course!”
“We study the most common types of classical
shoes, from laced shoes to moccasins, from sandals to
boots,” says tutor Shao-Wei Wu, who was a student
of the school herself before becoming a teacher. “From
tomorrow we will move on to décolletés and ballerinas.
Every week we add something more complicated.”
“Aren’t ballerinas quite simple to make?” I ask,
fooled by the apparent simplicity of flat shoes. “Not
quite,” she explains. “There is no such thing as a
simple shoe. You draw a line which then becomes
3D. Ballerinas look easy to make but it takes time to
achieve good results. Each footwear style has something
complicated. There is always a trick to learn.”
Around half of the students are sponsored by their
employers, especially those coming from northernEurope, where there is a long-standing tradition of
investing in employees’ training. Others come on
a scholarship, like 23-year-old Zhong Ying Shan,
an aspiring shoe designer who travelled to Italy’s
fashion capital all the way from China. “I studied shoe
and bag leather design back home,” she says. “Then
I won a school design competition which gave me the
opportunity to take part in this course. What I did in
China was mostly theoretical – not really a lot of hands-
on work and practice. My experience in Milan has been
a great learning experience so far.”TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF PRODUCTION
Ars Sutoria offers a selection of four courses: two dedicated
to shoes and two to bag-making. Crucial to all of them is
the exposure to the technical aspects of production. As Mr
Pasca puts it, “First it is essential to learn how to ‘build’ a
shoe or a bag. Design comes afterwards.”
Courses are intensive but never too long. They
run from a minimum of four weeks to a maximum of
13, five days a week. “The subjects are very specific,”
continues Pasca. Our participants have already
completed their studies – mostly in fashion design or
economics – so there is no need for basic information.
Students already have that by the time they arrive here.
What they want is specific information delivered over a
short amount of time.” Judging by the results, it looks
like they found the perfect recipe for success.➤ Ars Sutoria
School, via
Ippolito Nievo
33, Milan.
+39 02 3191
2327 school@
arssutoria.comINFORMATION
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