{"id":17094,"date":"2016-01-22T10:44:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T08:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=17094"},"modified":"2016-01-22T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T08:44:13","slug":"flying-high-with-shoe-designing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2016\/01\/22\/flying-high-with-shoe-designing\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying high with shoe designing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"mwenyemasi\"<\/a>Blantyre-based young man Chimwemwe Mwenyemasi\u2019s name was nowhere near until when he made progress repairing shoes and then later expanded his base going an extra mile to start designing shoes.<\/p>\n

Today the youthful artist is fit enough to be called a shoe designer, a feat which has taken others years in class studying and yet Mwenyemasi mastered it on his own.<\/p>\n

If it were in fashion, we would have said Mwenyemasi started off with tailoring before graduating to a designer.<\/p>\n

He has made shoes for renowned people, including Minister of Gender Patricia Kaliati, musicians Lucius Banda and his brother Paul and Alleluya Band, during their annual trips to Italy.<\/p>\n

This is not an easy feat for a person who has never been to the corridors of a university to master this art.<\/p>\n

In fact Mwenyemasi never dreamed that he would one day take shoe designing as his career. His dream was simply to be a presenter.<\/p>\n

But as a human being this was only a dream which never materialised as today Mwenyemasi is talking of a different story.<\/p>\n

To the business world, Mwenyemasi has succeeded to become an entrepreneur, an admirable one for that matter for his tremendous work.<\/p>\n

But to the creative world he is an artist extraordinaire.<\/p>\n

His art of shoe designing has travelled far and beyond such that some of his shoes have been sold outside the country.<\/p>\n

It is this art of shoe designing which has seen him being invited to a National Youth Conference 2016 to be held today at Bingu International Conference Centre in Lilongwe.<\/p>\n

This is the first ever conference running under the theme \u2018Youth Development and Empowerment: Key to transforming Malawi now and beyond\u2019. The conference has been organised by Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development, National Youth Council of Malawi and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in collaboration with the United Nations in Malawi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never knew that I would one day be invited to such a conference where the guest of honour is the State President Professor Peter Mutharika. I am excited and actually\u2019 I have designed a shoe for the President and will give it to him if that opportunity comes up,\u201d he said on Monday.<\/p>\n

According to a press statement from the ministry, the National Youth conference presents an opportunity for young people of Malawi, to discuss and provide their recommendations towards the successor to the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MDGS) II.<\/p>\n

During the time of this interview, Mwenyemasi carried some samples of shoes he had finished working on but many of those who saw his work could only admire his amazing talent.<\/p>\n

Some were tempted to buy the shoes outright while others because of the sizes which they could not fit only asked him to go bring shoes that would fit them.<\/p>\n

By the way, footwear has been a necessity for humans for centuries. It protects the feet from dirt and cold as well as sharp sticks and stones.<\/p>\n

According to available information, historically the first shoes were basically nothing more than bags that were secured over the feet and that typically, these bags were made from very thick durable material, such as animal hide.<\/p>\n

But overtime, the type of shoes a person wore began to become something of a status symbol such that royalty and other higher class individuals, for instance, could afford to have several pairs of fitted and attractive shoes made.<\/p>\n

These were often made from luxurious materials, and adorned with items like gems and ribbons.<\/p>\n

And today, shoes play an important role in fashion and women, for instance, are often stereotyped as being shoe addicts unlike men.<\/p>\n

But then the question is what does a shoe designer do?<\/p>\n

Shoe designers develop several different types of footwear and many shoe designers specialise in designing certain types of footwear, such as boots, athletic shoes, dress shoes, or sandals.<\/p>\n

So Mwenyemasi is a designer who can design shoes for women, men and children.<\/p>\n

Unlike shoe designers who have to wrk with a team, for now Mwenyemasi works alone from planning to making sketches and through to the final product.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am looking at growing myself; establish a company which will be strictly producing Malawian shoes. At the moment I do everything on my own. I am looking at training some fellow youths so that we can be working together as a team and give each other roles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Putting on a shirt matched with the shoes he was putting on, Mwenyemasi revealed that there are several investors who have come up but then the deals have failed because they could not agree with others asking him to change his Mwenyemasi label and the name of the company.<\/p>\n

Born on September 27, 1987, Mwenyemasi, who has designed shoes for models during the Distinguished Gentleman event, started this trade after his father passed away in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, my grandfather was the one who used to repair shoes and then he passed on this talent to my father. My father was more into shoe repair but then with time he shifted to producing safety boots and school shoes,\u201d said Mwenyemasi.<\/p>\n

He said after his father passed away, they experienced lots of challenges in their home such that soon after sitting for his Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) at St Kizito Community Day Secondary School in Blantyre, he could not go for tertiary education and instead started repairing shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult in the early stages but then with assistance from my mother who used to notice how my father used to do it, I started going the right direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The shoe designer admits that in the course of doing this, some of his friends started mocking him while others discouraged him.<\/p>\n

But he chose to shut his ears and never listen such that in the year 2012, he went to Andiamo in Balaka where he started designing shoes and that it was here that he ended up designing several shoes which Alleluya Band would carry to Italy.<\/p>\n

He worked at Andiamo for three years before coming back to Blantyre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had now gained experience and so this added with other information shoe designing started working for me. Actually I learnt more on shoe designing through YouTube videos and you can\u2019t believe it that I have never gone to a factory which makes shoes,\u201d said Mwenyemasi.<\/p>\n

Some of the materials he uses to produce shoes include leather jackets and shoe sows which he imports from South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also use zitenje and other clothes which I buy in town. As for the machine, I have an industrial machine which I actually boosted to fit shoe making,\u201d said the youthful artist, who hails from Malika Village, Traditional Authority Mpama in Chiradzulu.<\/p>\n

He said that at the moment he uses his home as a factory but is thinking of opening a company as part of boosting production.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have several customers and since I am the only one I disappoint some of them. On a day I produce five pairs of shoes but if there can be more hands then we can be producing more shoes to meet the demand,\u201d said Mwenyemasi.<\/p>\n

He said that at the moment he sells more men\u2019s shoes than women adding that most of them are the ones who are doing engagements.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them would love to have shoes which are matching with clothes just like the ones I am putting on. Actually the ones I am putting on, I bought a long sleeved shirt and then removed part of it whose cloth I used for producing shoes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blantyre-based young man Chimwemwe Mwenyemasi\u2019s name was nowhere near until when he made progress repairing shoes and then later expanded his base going an extra mile to start designing shoes. Today the youthful artist is fit enough to be called a shoe designer, a feat which has taken others years in class studying and yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17107,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17094\/revisions\/17107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}