I recently had the pleasure of attending the Blackarm Bespoke launch party held at the Labour Love Gallery in Durham. Blackarm Bespoke, if you remember, is the custom footwear brand started by good friend of OK Great, Kieran Ionescu. The party also featured a presentation from the good people of Raleigh Denim, Victor & Sarah. Raleigh Denim had been a strong supporter of Kieran from the outset, so it was nice to see everyone together celebrating the launch. John Pelphrey, owner of Labour Love, spent all day prior to the party building a custom presentation wall for his guests. Super-friggin-nice-guy.

See more pictures from the launch & read about Raleigh Denim + Blackarm Bespoke after the jump.

While Kieran has been studying & making shoes for a couple of years now, the launch was a way to celebrate his first ‘collection.’ I put collection in quotes because this isn’t your typical shoe collection. Kieran views the collection more as a dialogue between him & his clients. The collection is just a starting point from which he and his client can build a custom, made-to-order pair of shoes.

I thought it was great to hear both the Blackarm & Raleigh Denim stories together. While the two operations have so much in common in terms of their handmade, authentic production, they are in much different places in terms of growth. While Kieran is just getting ‘kicked off’ (holy shit I’m hilarious), Victor & Sarah have people working for them full time and have their product in places like Barney’s in New York. Dang.

Their business models are also, inherently, much different. Raleigh Denim is essentially a manufacturing operation. Once Victor and Sarah meticulously design a new line of jeans, they can be produced over and over by their staff. Of course, they are still producing every pair of jeans by hand, so the end product has that amazing and authentic feel to them. Kieran, on the other hand, has to produce every pair of shoes himself, from start to finish. And each pair is custom, thus coming with their own unique set of challenges. Blackarm will have a much more difficult time finding a viable, sustainable business model. I have the utmost faith in Kieran, though, and I truly believe all he needs is time & exposure. So, if you’re reading, Kanye, ask Kieran to make you some kicks. Word.

Tags: blackarm bespoke, custom shoes, handmade jeans, handmade shoes, labour love gallery, Raleigh Denim