Shoe industry figures receive Cordwainers honour
18/12/2014
Kevin Guildford, course leader of the footwear design course at De Montfort University in Leicester, Katie Greenyer, creative director of Pentland Group, and independent designer Atalanta Weller have been made freemen of the company, meaning they have been given entry-level membership. London-based bespoke shoemaker Caroline Groves, already a freeman of the company, was made a liveryman, or full member.
After a ceremony to receive the new members in early December, John Miller, clerk of the Cordwainers Company, said: “The Cordwainers are delighted to welcome these leading figures in British shoe design. The Company supports and is fostering links between industry and education, so important to ensure the vitality of the British footwear industry and the development of new exciting talent.”
Caroline Groves will be one of a select group of designers to have her shoes displayed in a new exhibition, ‘Shoes – Pleasure and Pain’, at the Victoria and Albert museum in London next year. The exhibition, which will open in June 2015, is sponsored by the Cordwainers Company.
The Livery Companies of the City of London descended from the medieval trade guilds and were responsible for training as well as regulating their respective trades. Cordwainers are shoemakers, originally highly skilled craftsmen who used the finest goatskin from Cordoba in Spain. The company’s roots date back to 1272 and its first charter from the crown came in 1439, licensing Cordwainers to control the shoe trade in the City of London. Today, the company has a strong charitable ethos but says its primary focus is to “nurture young talent in the fashion and shoemaking industries”.
Image shows (left to right) Katie Greenyer of Pentland, Kevin Guildford of De Montfort University, Lance Shaw, Master of the Cordwainers Company, Caroline Groves and Atalanta Weller.
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