SERVICE
 

High class shoes may be repaired many times without limiting their functional values. The repair method used in our workshop is almost identical to making new shoes, the materials used to repair worn out heel tips are also identical. Therefore, we encourage you not only to order new pairs of shoes but also to renovate old ones, since they can usually be worn for many years, much longer than factory made products.
Shoes in need of repair, with evident marks of wear on soles and heels.
Careful delamination of soles in order to remove worn leather.
Removal of old heels.	Shoe ready for replacement of leather.
Heel almost ready. Cut out butt leather is waiting to be stitched.
The most difficult operation: stitching the soles.
After a whole day's work, ready and cleaned shoes waiting to be collected.
Hand-made shoes may be good for many years. Nevertheless, it is crucial to care for them and incur certain expenditures in the form of creams, shoe polishes and shoe trees keeping them in their original shapes. Should you have any enquiries or doubts, please contact us at jan@kielman.pl

MAINTENANCE AND CARE
 

Cosmetics for leather shoe care should always be of the best quality, and their purchase governed by the producer’s brand rather than the price. In our opinion, the following companies offer the best quality: Shoeboy’s, Collonil, Wolly, Meltonian and Dr.Martens.

For everyday care, creams in jars or tubes are the most comfortable. They soak deeply into the leather, giving them perfect elasticity.

In order to obtain shine, it is better to use hard pastes from metal cans. They do not soak deeply into the leather but stay on its surface. In the final phase of polishing the shoes, it is good to dampen the cotton wool slightly. With a little bit of paste, the shine will be perfect and long-lasting. It is better to apply several microscopic layers of the paste than to struggle with the excess of it.

How To Care For Shoes

Both cream and polish are best applied and uniformly spread on the shoe surface with a small brush, similar to a toothbrush. Initial polishing may be done with a medium hardness horsehair brush, which rubs the cream (polish) into the leather and removes its possible excess.

Polishing to high lustre takes place with the use of a piece of cotton wool, some polish and a small amount of water. This stage requires 10-30 minutes, depending on the skill of the polishing person, quality of the polish and the sort of leather that the shoes are made of.

The quantity of polish should be minimal. It is better to apply it several times in microscopic layers than later fight its pellets stuck into the perforation of the leather.

Cleaning

You should start cleaning shoes when the leather on them is dry.

Good shoes, when not in use, always need to be on shoetrees - wooden are the best. Owing to them, bends in the leather straighten out, drying shoes do not get deformed, and they are going to be much easier to clean. Having a shoetree, you can go ahead and rinse leather soles with water. After drying, the soles must be well greased (e.g. with cosmetic oil). Drying can never take place near heaters or radiators. This can cause even the best leather to crack.

Salt stains are almost unremovable. One of the most effective means is a full bath of the shoes in warm water with some shampoo or soap. You should massage the immersed shoes with a brush (also the interior - particularly in the place of the toes) trying to rinse out the dried salt from the leather. Probably it is not the salt that we know from winter sidewalks, but rather physiological salt that comes out from the feet with water vapor.

After bathing you should insert the shoetrees in the shoes, place them away to be dried and then grease them.

There is a following trade-off - the better the leather on the shoes, the less perspiration you get, the worse the shoes, made from leather covered with a non-breathing layer of lacquer and on synthetic soles - the more feeling of moist feet you have.

We do not advise the use of any shining liquids, which leave a very difficult to remove film on the leather when drying. This film then cracks, giving the shoes a worn and unsightly look. This is the beginning of the end of the shoes - regardless of their age.

Modern preparations for impregnation, of course, stop the leather from soaking in water for some time, but sometimes they can render it very difficult to restore a beautiful shine to elegant shoes. Speaking of elegant shoes, as opposed to sports or tourist ones, it is better to adhere to traditional, entirely satisfactory methods. Today, hardly anyone (probably) spends hours in the pouring rain wearing elegant office or tailcoat shoes.

In the car, it is useful to keep a small box with a sponge soaked with silicon, in order to be able to restore one's shoes to at least a proper look at any time. This method, however, shall not replace regular maintenance as described above.

For removing dirt in the kind of sand, mud etc, from the edge of the sole, it is best to use a small, stiff toothbrush.

For removing stains from a light colored edge of the sole use extraction naphtha. Apply cream after drying.

You should select the colour of polish to match perfectly the color of shoe uppers or a slightly darker one. Lighter colored polish often causes appearance of white crosswise streaks where the shoe bends over the toes.

Perseverance in action is advisable. Preparation of elegant shoes for an important business or social meeting may require as much as half an hour.

In case of any questions or doubts, please do not hesitate to contact us writing to the following address: jan@kielman.pl