London used to have an active shoes manufacturing industry and East End, Shoreditch and Hackney in particular, had cobblers of all kinds working on domestic product. Until the early 1990s, Shoreditch High Street and Hackney Road were lined with shoe wholesalers. The area even housed the headquarters of Shoe & Leather News, the former industry bible. At the heart of the trade was Cordwainers College, founded in 1887 in Bethnal Green and moved to Mare Street in the 1940s. Now part of London College of Fashion (UAL), the college offers degrees in footwear design and has recently relocated to Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, equipped with state-of-the-art shoemaking facilities. After the 1990s, local production slowed down and London’s shoes industry lost many of its family-owned businesses as well as skilled labor. Still, there are remnants of East London’s shoemaking tradition that endure; Freed of London continues to produce ballet shoes from its Hackney factory, a tradition it has upheld since 1971. While neither the area, nor the city can fully get back to its glory days, a revival has been in the works. Artisans like Alim Latif of ROKER and bespoke shoemaker Sebastian Tarek are building new legacies in the area. Latif, whose studio is tucked away off Hackney Road, has become known for his avant-garde, gender-fluid creations and collaborations with designers like Charles Jeffrey Loverboy and Harris Reed. He sources leathers both locally and internationally, relying on suppliers from East London to Italy. His workshop is powered by vintage machinery salvaged from shuttered shoe factories, and his team includes freelancers, outworkers, and students from Central Saint Martins and the Cordwainers program. Sebastian Tarek’s aesthetic leans toward the bespoke traditions of the West End, where he honed his skills with master shoemaker James Taylor. Both he and Latif are mentoring young talent and preserving the art of shoemaking in London.