Gild The Lily

The client wished for a pair of silver evening boots with character. She had an image of favourite vintage shoe, I will upload that image, that she wanted us to use as inspiration for a lace up boot. Part of the charm of the vintage shoe was the tarnishing and wear/antiquing of the silver leather. It was apparent that the metalised surface of the leather was in fact suede onto which the foil had been applied. She was also enchanted by the chain stitch floral embroidery .
We wanted to lift the essence of this shoe into a contemporary boot with vintage references.
We did a number of experiments with different suedes as a base for the precious metal that we wanted to apply in leaf form to emulate the inspiration shoe. A very flat compact brown suede kid proved to be the most successful base for the leaf. We experimented with a number of precious metals. Silver tarnishes too quickly so we ended up using Palladium leaf which we applied using size and a heating iron(gilding)(see video).
The embroideries were worked by hand, chain stitch onto an even weave fabric and inlayed into the legs of the boots. As well as the floral imagery of the original shoe we also took inspiration for a bird of paradise, for one panel, from a little group of water colour paintings, again, a vintage find.
The final boots had a small platform and 6cm carved beechwood heel, covered with the metalised suede and soled with a breasted construction