The third edition of the American edition of the Super Trunk Show (the New York Super Trunk 2025) took place a few weekends ago. It was a great day that gathered hundreds of shoe enthusiasts in Manhattan who browsed the offerings of shoe and menswear companies from around the globe. There were also several stage sessions on shoe care and shoemaking, the final of the U.S. championships of Shoe Shining, and more. Here’s a report with loads of photos from the day.
We have to admit that we, in the organizing group – Jesper Ingevaldsson of Shoegazing, Justin FitzPatrick (me) of The Shoe Snob blog, and Kirby Allison of the YouTube channel and webshop with the same name – were a bit nervous about how the New York Super Trunk 2025 would unfold. This is an event with mainly international exhibitors, and the tumultuous year with tariffs and removal of the de minimis for private import has affected a lot of the brands participating and their US business.
Luckily, we had another great day. The number of visitors who attended was a bit lower than in previous years, but still high, and those who came were really engaged. Nearly every exhibitor had super busy days. A few of them even had their highest number of orders placed at a super trunk event ever, which was really nice to see. Direct sales on site isn’t the only purpose of being at the super trunks, but of course, it’s something that makes it all better.
The largest tables of the venue were held by our Platinum sponsors. French shoe care brand Saphir is the golden standard of shoe care in the world, and their booth was packed with their great products, including the recently launched absolute premium sneaker care range. Saphir also offered a free shoe-shining service, where Preston Soto of The Elegant Oxford and Levi Elliott of Levi’s Shoe Shine gave visitors a nice glacage on their shoes.
Bridlen out of India that has made a proper mark with their Goodyear welted shoes and boots with their old-school, directly-to-leather insole welting, as well as the lightweight Reverse Goodyear construction. In New York, they premiered two new asymmetric lasts that have a fit that one that the American market likes, with good room for the forefoot. You can also find Bridlen selling on The Shoe Snob Shop.
The gold sponsors were CNES from Vietnam, whose table, as usual, looks like a candy shop with a flavor to suit all shoe aficionados, everything from chunky boots to the sleekest of dress shoes. A lot hand hand-welted, but also Goodyear and other shoe constructions. We also had the American tailoring firm Charles Paige Atelier, who had a busy day taking measurements for people who wanted to get suits as well as their casual offerings, like jeans and overshirts. Many appreciate CP’s combination of classic and modern styling.
Then we had a bunch of Silver exhibitors, not least Yearn from China, which had their table crowded with people throughout the day, with big interest in their hand-welted and sleek footwear. Chicago-based Optimo and their fine top-quality hats are always a favourite, which is nice to see.
Ichigo Ichie makes some really nice, fully handmade shoes with often rather bold designs, which see an increasing interest internationally. As usual, we want to have some bespoke shoemakers on site, and this year, Brooklyn-based Francis Waplinger not only showcased his fine bespoke samples merging Italian and American, but also did some shoemaking live.
Divij Bespoke from California is known for achieving great fit with their tailoring and classic clothing.
We also had Caswell Boot Company there, with rugged workwear boots, both Goodyear welted and hand welted, really solid stuff.
Blk Brd from India makes some of the most affordable fully handmade footwear you can get your hands on, looking impressive. You can also now find Blkbrd on The Shoe Snob Shop.
And throughout the day we had Ten To One rum serve well-tasting drinks to visitors.
New this year was that we sort of went back to the roots of the super trunk events and had a wider stage programme, with talks throughout the day. Levi Elliot and Preston Soto hosted various shoe care sessions where they talked about suede care, repairing a mirror gloss shine, and how to remove salt stains.
Zahan Anees of Bridlen had a very engaging talk on how to run a shoe factory, and there was a Q&A session where Francis Waplinger answered questions on being a bespoke shoemaker. We definitely want to continue with these. Here, the venue is perfect with a disclosed stage area, a bit trickier in London and maybe also at the Singapore event on January 31st, but we will look at ways to do it similarly there as well.
As is always is the case with our Super Trunk Shows, one of the main highlights is the shine finale. Here in the U.S. Championships of Shoe Shining final, organized in collaboration with sponsors Saphir and Bridlen, we had Ray Chen from New York state, California based Nicholas Fuentes, and Mario Cesar Samaniego from Texas.
They had 20 minutes to use Saphir Medaille d’Or pate de lux and mirror gloss to transform one factory new Bridlen plain cap toe oxford in to a well-shined piece of leather. Ray Chen was crowned the winner, and apart from the gold medal got a pair of Bridlen shoes and $500 given by Saphir, with runner up Mario Cesar Sameniego getting $200, and 3rd placed Nicholas Fuentes, $100.
You can see the live stream from the final at the bottom of this article, professional video coverage will come later on Kirby Allison’s YouTube channel.
A big thanks to all you who came and made the New York Super Trunk 2025 such a great day!
Next up we prepare for the first edition of the Singapore Super Trunk Show with the inaugural Asian shoe shining champs on January 31st, and then we will host the yearly London event second weekend of May as usual.
Stay tuned for more info on those.
—Justin FitzPatrick, The Shoe Snob
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Thanks for posting so that all that are unable to attend can view. If it were financially possible, it would be great to have a competition of the three winners of the different shoe shine contest; London, New York and Singapore. A Super Bowl of shoe shinning!