The Vein Store in Brisbane is currently closed.
We are upgrading our beautiful wooden floors.
We were originally meant to re-open today, however the wrong colour wood was used.
We will replace this floor again and are not yet sure of an exact date the store will be open again. Probably some time late next week.
You can still purchase all the shoes on veinwear.com or kittycroquet.com. Postage is free. Correct size is guaranteed. Returns are free.
I'll keep you updated.
Thank you for your patience!
Would you buy shoes in a department store?
I visited the department store today. I won't say which one. I won't say which country. I don't need to because they are all the same, it seems.
Being a serial shoe voyeur I can never resist walking past any place selling shoes. So I snuck a peak. Depression oozed into my consciousness. An empty feeling started in my gut sapped any enthusiasm I had towards the shoes. Why?
No body here cares about the shoes. They are strewn around the place in rows. No one wants to talk to me. Is there even anyone on this floor? The prices are clearly marked but no one wants to explain to me why shoes similar in appearance have vastly different prices. There is no information to digest. There are no stories. There aren't even many photographs to look at. Just labels, and prices and shoes.
It is so obvious that no one around here really cares about shoes that I don't even want to ask an assistant for more information about particular styles. I know she won't know, and worse, I know she won't care. She just wants me to serve myself to some "stuff".
If I was going to buy shoes, beautiful shoes, shoes that make me feel like a million bucks...I wouldn't buy them in a department store. Even if I could. Would you?
Being a serial shoe voyeur I can never resist walking past any place selling shoes. So I snuck a peak. Depression oozed into my consciousness. An empty feeling started in my gut sapped any enthusiasm I had towards the shoes. Why?
No body here cares about the shoes. They are strewn around the place in rows. No one wants to talk to me. Is there even anyone on this floor? The prices are clearly marked but no one wants to explain to me why shoes similar in appearance have vastly different prices. There is no information to digest. There are no stories. There aren't even many photographs to look at. Just labels, and prices and shoes.
It is so obvious that no one around here really cares about shoes that I don't even want to ask an assistant for more information about particular styles. I know she won't know, and worse, I know she won't care. She just wants me to serve myself to some "stuff".
If I was going to buy shoes, beautiful shoes, shoes that make me feel like a million bucks...I wouldn't buy them in a department store. Even if I could. Would you?
How can you tell a top quality leather?
I was talking today with our leather master. He is our resident expert on all things skins. I take advice from him regarding the quality, pricing and suitability of leathers for different shoes.
His grandfather was a cow farmer, his father a tanner and he has been dealing in leather his entire life. They say when he was born, he was wrapped in leather. He has run his own leather business for over 35 years and he is not a young man. So I take his opinion as fact.
I wanted to ask, in his opinion, how can you tell a good leather? I was hoping he would give me an easy to use expert checklist that I could pass on to our customers. That way they could easily check the quality of our leathers and compare them against the leather used in other labels' shoes.
I know he's not an expressive man, but I was a little disappointed with his answer. He said, "after about 10 to 15 years of handling leathers everyday you just know."
I had a fleeting thought he might be protecting his profession with smokescreen the way a lawyer uses legalese instead of plain English. So I probed him a bit more. He was open and honest but the answers were filled with a lot of, "it depends on this" and "depends on that" and "ifs" and "buts".
There are some general factors that go into the equation of whether it's the perfect leather. They include the skin's thickness, weight, flexibility, elasticity, suppleness, dye, grain, blemishes, moisture, coatings and finishes, odour, shine, etc.. None of which even starts to address colour or fashion.
Then you have to consider the application. Who is it for? In what context will it be worn? What is its durability? What chemicals were used in the tanning process? What type of shoe is it? What about the pattern of the shoe design?
It is like a massive equation with inputs for all of those variables. But there's no time for quantified scientific tests. Nor are there tests available for all the variables. Even if there were accurate tests for all the variables, we still don't know the formula. All we have are the ingredients, not the recipe.
So how do we get an answer to the question in the context of a particular shoe? The answer, now satisfyingly, is "after about 10 to 15 years of handling leathers everyday you just know." After 35 years you don't even need to think about it. Within seconds of laying his hands on a skin, the master knows. All the variables enter through his senses of touch, smell and sight into a brain with the experience of handling leathers for 35 years. Out pops the answer, like magic.
As a customer, how do you tell a top quality leather? It might come down to faith. I trust our leather master. You trust me. Not scientifically or objectively satisfying. But I ask you this...who do you trust at another shoe label? Is there even anyone to ask there?
His grandfather was a cow farmer, his father a tanner and he has been dealing in leather his entire life. They say when he was born, he was wrapped in leather. He has run his own leather business for over 35 years and he is not a young man. So I take his opinion as fact.
I wanted to ask, in his opinion, how can you tell a good leather? I was hoping he would give me an easy to use expert checklist that I could pass on to our customers. That way they could easily check the quality of our leathers and compare them against the leather used in other labels' shoes.
I know he's not an expressive man, but I was a little disappointed with his answer. He said, "after about 10 to 15 years of handling leathers everyday you just know."
I had a fleeting thought he might be protecting his profession with smokescreen the way a lawyer uses legalese instead of plain English. So I probed him a bit more. He was open and honest but the answers were filled with a lot of, "it depends on this" and "depends on that" and "ifs" and "buts".
There are some general factors that go into the equation of whether it's the perfect leather. They include the skin's thickness, weight, flexibility, elasticity, suppleness, dye, grain, blemishes, moisture, coatings and finishes, odour, shine, etc.. None of which even starts to address colour or fashion.
Then you have to consider the application. Who is it for? In what context will it be worn? What is its durability? What chemicals were used in the tanning process? What type of shoe is it? What about the pattern of the shoe design?
It is like a massive equation with inputs for all of those variables. But there's no time for quantified scientific tests. Nor are there tests available for all the variables. Even if there were accurate tests for all the variables, we still don't know the formula. All we have are the ingredients, not the recipe.
So how do we get an answer to the question in the context of a particular shoe? The answer, now satisfyingly, is "after about 10 to 15 years of handling leathers everyday you just know." After 35 years you don't even need to think about it. Within seconds of laying his hands on a skin, the master knows. All the variables enter through his senses of touch, smell and sight into a brain with the experience of handling leathers for 35 years. Out pops the answer, like magic.
As a customer, how do you tell a top quality leather? It might come down to faith. I trust our leather master. You trust me. Not scientifically or objectively satisfying. But I ask you this...who do you trust at another shoe label? Is there even anyone to ask there?
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