ESTEAST reimagines the
"grandpa's shoes"
The history of fabric shoes.
Fabric shoe is a very classic Chinese craftsmanship that can be back dated to 3000 years ago.
Shoes made entirely of fabric( usually cotton or linen fabric), even the outer sole is handstitched by fabric, stitched by ramie rope make it very breathable and soft, while very strong.
Each pair of handcrafted fabric shoes requires thousands of stitches and days of making.
Back in the old days, women used to get together after the harvest to make the fabric shoes for their families, it's made of love.
They bond old cloths together by using crop starch, and then they cut the bonded fabric into foot shapes, before they hand stitched them into soles.
Different from the industrialized shoes that are full of adhesive glue or synthetic materials. This unique craftsmanship use only natural materials, fabric shoes are very healthy to your feet.
The traditional style of fabric shoes is in black color.
You can see it in many Chinese traditional Kung Fu movies.
It used to be the national shoes.
How ESTEAST breathable?
1. The crop is milled into flour. We only use natural materials like corn, rice and konjak.
2. Then the flour is made into starch paste.
3. Bonding layers of cotton fabric together by starch paste, this is why fabric shoes also called "thousand layers sole".
4. Bonding fabric is called "ge bei" in local language,
after the "ge bei" dried, it is cut into foot shapes.
5.Artisan use ramie ropes to hand stitch the fabric sole. Each pair of soles need thousands of stitches and days of making.
6.after the upper is done, artisan will hand stitch the upper and sole together.
With thousands of stitches, the shoes will be very breathable and strong at the same time.
And because it is stitched, the sole will be very soft like your feet are wearing cloth after using.
