Behind the Scenes 22 - The Story Behind the GORAL Blake Stitch

BEHIND THE SCENES 22
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A comprehensive guide to our unique construction

When we first launched our REBUILD+ service we were using a simple sidewall stitch, as is commonplace for trainers, but we noticed that when we were removing the thread for a resole that it was causing the shoes to lose their shape, requiring them to be relasted undoing any breaking in that had occurred.

We wanted to find a way around this so we set our most senior craftsmen the task of working out how. Initially we looked at using adhesive to secure the upper to the lasting board but this presented it's own problems due to there being a chance that this could inadvertently glue the outsole to the upper resulting in tears in the leather when removing the sole.

After this failed attempt managing director and 3rd generation shoemaker Bogdan suggested we looked to the traditional dress shoe method of blake stitching to see if we could adapt it for a trainer.

This was a great starting point as it pointed us in the direction of stitching the lasting board directly to the upper, the only issues being that it wouldn't work with a rubber outsole and it would also mean sacrificing the waterproofing that comes with a sidewall stitch.

So we returned to the drawing board again, looking at ways to modify the blake stitch to suit a trainer whilst maintaining the water tight seal. Our solution was to combine the two previous techniques, stitching the upper directly to the lasting board as found in a blake stitch but also adding a sidewall stitch at the same time to fix the outsole to the upper and seal up the shoe.

The result is the best of both worlds, allowing for a quick and easy resole whilst maintaining the resilience against the elements that our original method offered. A first in the trainer world our take on the blake stitch is allowing us to commit to a lifetime repair guarantee.