About 5 or 6 years ago I bought a pair of secondhand American Duchess 18th century latchet shoes off Poshmark, the Georgiana style, one of their very original designs from around 10 years ago. The leather soles started to separate from the shoe after a very intense day competing in the 2022 San Diego Comic Con Masquerade. Of course I put them away in their shoe box and promptly forgot about the issue until I wore them to a photo shoot in February 2024.
Fast forward a few months, I have another event I need to wear the shoes to, so what better time to try my hand at at-home shoe repair! This is my first time ever resoling shoes myself, so disclaimer, I am not a professional cobbler. I have my shoes resoled by cobblers all the time because repair & rewear, make do and mend, loved clothes last. Seriously, I have a pair of chelsea boots that are over 10 years old that I've had professionally resoled every year or so because I wear them so much.
This is just a fun do it yourself attempt I wanted try simply to see if I could.
How it started. One sole completely fell off ( and I misplaced it) while the other sole was partially detached.
Since I misplaced the second sole, I needed to make a new leather sole. I traced the remaining sole with parchment paper to get a rough pattern.
I transferred the parchment paper pattern to sturdier butcher paper, using Wonder Clips to hold it in place while I checked the edges and made adjustments.
Once I was happy with my pattern, I cut out my new leather sole with some thick veg tan leather that matches the weight and thickness of the original sole.
The trickiest part was applying contact cement to all the right spots on the shoe so there's strong coverage but not glue peeking out. And then of course lining up the sole when attaching it.
Quick tip: If you're using contact cement, these plastic spatula glue spreaders are the best. Just flexible enough and once the glue dries, you can just peel it off and reuse them.
Contact cement needs strong contact over 24 hours while it dries, which for a shoe, was the most unknown territory for me. I ended up using some cotton twill tape to wrap around the shoe to hold the sole tightly to the shoe uppers. And for good measure, a c clamp at the instep with a piece of scrap leather to avoid leaving any marks.
So did DIY shoe repair work?
These 18th century shoes held up for a full day of pirate adventuring on a replica 18th century tall ship HMS Surprise where I wore my Pirates of the Caribbean 1740s Elizabeth Swann cosplay!
Photo by Mark Edwards Photography
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