Mr. Norman Vilalta has an interesting history. He hails from Argentina originally with the background and profession of a lawyer. Growing tired of that life, he decided to follow his passion and moved to Florence, Italy to be trained in bespoke shomaking by the legendary Stefano Bemer. After several years with Stefano he felt he was then ready to take on his own workshop and start making shoes wth his own name in them. After years of doing just bespoke work, he felt a desire to do more with his brand and decided to start his own Ready to Wear line of very high-end Spanish made welted shoes. He currently works from a studio in Barcelona often travelling to the factory to control his ready to wear production that has been quite succesful since launching and which are now sold at various stores all around the world, such as the Leffot of NYC.
He calls his latest collection (as shown here) is called Savile Row meets Rock ’n’ Roll, and it describes his shoes very well. A mix of classic design and modern twists (and very Norman) like super heavy rubber soles or a chelsea boots turned into chukkas. With these he has in short time made a quite big imprint on the market for classic shoes. His RTW shoes cost around £700/€820. If you are interested in ordering bespoke, e-mail [email protected] to reserve an appointment (drop in also possible).
Yet another reason to come to our London Super Trunk Show this May 13th at The Music Room
1) Looks like he’s nicked the lasts from old Bemer as the shoe shapes look extremely similar. Still not much use to Bemer now I guess.
2) Hs’s seems to have a penchant for making shoes ugly wherever possible by whacking great big tyre treads on the bottom of the soles
3) Don’t say that Zatara doesn’t give any positive advice … maybe you two could do a joint venture on a pair of shoes … market it through the interweb to the Igentry. Button boots using one of Bemer’s old lasts in two tone leather and cloth with a GREAT BIG HUGE RUBBER SOLE on the bottom! Don’t pretend you don’t love this idea Justin 😉