Undeniably sexy, incredibly well made and €400 a whack, Gina shoes tread red carpets worldwide. Meet their maker
"We call this heaven because it's where we keep the soles," quips Aydin Kurdash of Gina as we tour his shoe factory in London's East End. Gina is known to the fashion cognoscenti as one of the most glamorous red carpet shoe brands, hot on the heels of Manolos and Jimmy Choos. Gina has shod some of the most high-profile women in the world, but the company, founded by a Cypriot emigre in London in 1954 and called after his favourite Italian movie star, Gina Lollobrigida, tends not to brag about its success.
Princess Diana was a fan, so is Kate Winslet, along with various British royals and movie stars. Madonna has been an enthusiast for years, wearing Gina shoes both on and off stage. She wears Gina's red Swarovski crystal stilettos on the cover of her latest CD. At London Fashion week, both Julien Macdonald and Giles Deacon choose Gina shoes for their catwalk shows.
Gina shoes are designed and handmade from start to finish in a factory in Hackney. The shoes are undeniably sexy, and incredibly well made (there are up to 20 tiny stitches to the inch). Their frivolous good looks belie the amount of craftsmanship that goes into their construction.
After a visit to the factory to watch the process that begins with the creation of a last or shoe form and ends 30 stages and some 160 operations later, I can never look at the footwear in quite the same way again. Clicking, folding, cutting, taping, filling, top-stitching are all labour-intensive procedures done by hand, while one complicated machine stretches the upper to the insole in a process called toe lasting. In the cycle of their production, it takes around four weeks to make a pair of shoes, "though one person could make a pair in two to three days". Such workmanship comes at a price - they cost €400-€550 for a pair.
Aydin Kurdash, son of the company's founder, is a quiet, modest man obsessed with curves, ridges and angles, who spends hours puzzling over the millimetre differences that go into the complexities of shoemaking. Cradling a classic Gina, a lightweight slipper made of exquisite leathers and interlocking straps of diamante, he explains its success. "It's perfect for a wedding and it looks great with jeans, going to a party, or an evening event. It's very versatile. It's not full-on bling."
Ideas for shoe shapes and colours tend to come from the leather fairs in Bologna and from talking with fashion designers and noting trends. "We are influenced by designers, and having that input is hugely important for us," Kurdash says. He has been perfecting a round-toe of late and, holding up a handsome high-heeled court in grey satin, studded with Swarovski crystal, elaborates on the way in which the toe has been sculpted to get the right domed shape. "Shoemaking is a thing of passion and it is all hand work. This is just a toe, but the more you look at it and understand it, the more elegant it looks," he says. He's thinking about platform peep-toes for next summer, and bright surfboard colours . . .
In 1999 the company made the world's most expensive mules - in alligator skin finished with white gold buckles containing 36 diamonds. With a price tag of £18,000 (€26,350), they shoehorned the company into the Guinness Book of Records. Last May, a high-earning British marketing executive with a penchant for pink bought a pair of shocking pink slingbacks from Gina and ordered her new Porsche in the same colour. A slingback was sent to Stuttgart and the exact paint shade was found for the car.
"Shoes are more important than clothes," Aydin says. "A simple black dress is all you need to wear with phenomenal shoes." His engagement present to his wife Angie was a pair of pale green alligator skin shoes with emerald-cut diamonds on the front. "Shoemaking is a craft industry. You have to be clever about how to put things together; it's a bit like cooking." The making of the last, with all its complicated measurements, is the most important part of the whole process. "A millimetre is a huge amount in shoe terms. It's the difference between showing toe-cleavage or not. "
Each collection contains between 30 and 40 lasts, which are made up in different materials such as kid, calf, patent or whipsnake. Zita, a slipper with a kitten heel and intertwined diamante uppers is the company's most popular style. "It looks like a piece of jewellery when it is on. It has been a great success for us." Other items include slingbacks with big, black jet buckles and fur tassels, as well as feathery mules, red patent striped courts and gold metallic peep-toes.
The factory has a workforce of 35 and makes around 750 pairs of shoes a week. Its main markets are the Middle East, Russia and Australia. The company has its own shops in Sloane Street and Old Bond Street in London and also sells on-line. As we leave the factory, racks of shoes, all glittering gold Swarovski crystal and high heels, are being wheeled along on trolleys to their packing cases. They will be wrapped in black tissue paper, tucked into black satin-lined boxes stamped with the company crest, to be despatched to the US, to Moscow, to Dubai, and to Dublin.
• Gina shoes are sold for €400-€550 in Brown Thomas, Dublin 2, and Harvey Nichols, Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin 14 (or €120-€240 in the Harvey Nics sale, ending tomorrow). Also online from www.ginashoes.com
