Carmina’s new braided tassel loafers are exactly what the doctor ordered. I love anything braided and have been speaking on the resurgence of tassel loafers. And yet here we are with a new braided tassel loafer by Carmina Shoemaker that hits the spot. A double-whammy of an offering!
Most won’t realize but braided leather shoe models come with limitations in the pattern unless you want to have piping everywhere. It’s not an easy feature to incorporate into your footwear. That’s why I always love seeing them and understanding how the pattern maker conquers the pattern.
The reason they are tricky is that they can never have an exposed seam and you cannot just sear it. You have to either pipe it or always have it as the piece on the bottom. For example, it works great on an adelaide as you will put the cap, facing, and heel counter on top of the vamp/quarter pieces and seal the braided part below. But if you added braided to a cap on a cap toe it would have to be closed with piping, which will be quite a bold look, not easy to swallow. So it is limited.
You cannot sew an apron into braided leather so Carmina’s faux apron piece sewn on top of the braided leather was ingenious. I know that Carmina was probably not the first to do that feature, but nonetheless, making these braided tassel loafers was ingenious as it is a super cool ‘best of both worlds’ model. I can only imagine that it will be a successful model as both ‘braided’ and ‘tassel loafers’ are on the rise!
Learn more here: www.carminashoemaker.com
