Marlietta Schock is the Founder and educator of the classes at Last making School.com.

 

Interested in historical fashion design methods, she was trained in domestic arts such as sewing, crochet, knitting, and lace making by her mother and grandmothers.  She took to fashion design easily and went on to make high priced silk wedding gowns that included hand made lace and hand beaded embellishments. One of the major steps in making a custom gown was life casting the individual for a dress form.  See article  . In the late 1990's, she discovered a book on shoe making that peeked her interest in delving further into how to design shoes from the shoe form to the final product.   In 2003, She began to do research on shoe making, but what remained absent in most of the information was how to make a last. Because her life casting experience with dress forms, it was her goal to apply this same knowledge to making shoe forms.

 

Desiring to preserve a public knowledge of hand last making, Marlietta made a proposal to a major textbook company to write a book on how make lasts by hand.  Her proposal was accepted. Finding that it was an in-depth subject, apprenticeship was required. Thus, our founder was sent to Brazil to apprentice for 6 months with a shoe-making master of 60 years. After spending 6 months in Brazil, she went on to spend an additional 6 months in London visiting the cordwainers (shoe makers) of London, watching, observing and being educated in their methods of last making. While in London She also spent time combing through rare books, papers and information regarding closely guarded secrets of last making.  After leaving London, she went on to spend a few weeks in Italy, apprenticing with the some of the hand last making masters of Italian custom shoe makers. Finally ending her educational journey in France where she spent 6 additional months with a master shoemaker.

 

After returning to America, she began compiling all the information that she learned with in her textbook. Additionally, she began teaching.  Because of the enormous expense that it takes to resurrect a dying art, in 2008 after the banking market crashed, the publisher scrapped the book project. However, She was granted the retention of her authoring rights and continues to utilize parts of her manuscript, designing and making lasts for boots and shoes as hand outs in her classes.  She continues to complete the manuscript in between her life responsibilities and teaching.

 

It is her goal, to share with anyone who is interested in hand last making and shoe design to learn the historical methods of last making. Therefore, the school was founded.