Where Have Your Aurora Shoes Taken YOU?

Venice, Italy

Kathy Kramer recently sent us a couple of photos from her trip to Venice last November.  We love her comments and had to share them as written (we agree that face photos are totally overrated).  She writes: 

It is so funny that you are featuring photos on your site, and that I have a suitable photograph for that; I was not at the time intending especially to take a picture of my shoes but to take a picture in protest of always having to display one's face and upper torso (a little bit grumpy at the time). I was sitting on the balcony of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum overlooking the Grand Canal. I attach another photograph showing a wider view of the balcony and canal: you can probably recognize the same iron work.

Thanks for sharing, Kathy. 

Where have your Aurora Shoes taken YOU?

Aurora Shoes in Hong Kong

Hong Kong 

The Aurora Shoe:
On a dark, dark Hong Kong night, 

in the middle of a Black Rain, 

the 14 year old 'little black shoe' held up!

-Victoria de Leon 

Where have your Aurora Shoes taken YOU?

To Market, To Market

We're excited to share that the Aurora Shoe Company has been selected as a featured business at the Poppytalk Handmade Marketplace.  Check out our virtual table and all of the other handmade and vintage goodness that surrounds us.  Visit the Poppytalk blog later this month to read our post about the value of buying locally sourced and handmade products. 

What's Your Style?

image via lillyella

We've been poking around on the internet again and spotted this great blog dedicated to the unique and the handmade.  Nicole of Lillyella accepts regular style submissions for an ongoing blog segment she calls "Couture du Jour".  We were flattered to see our shoes highlighted in this submission by Sally from the popular Etsy shop,  Night Owl Craft Works.  We love the outfit Sally has put together and especially like the way it features natural leather in the bag and shoes.   

We like to think that our simple styling lends itself to a variety of fashions.  What do you wear with your Auroras?  

Share your Aurora Shoe style by sending a photo or a collage like the one above to aurorashoealyssa(at)gmail.com.

Where Have Your Aurora Shoes Taken You?

Costal Maine and Rhode Island

It was a great week-long vacation full of fresh seafood 

days spent at the beach 

and lots of fun with family and friends.  

So much fun that I didn't think to photograph my shoes until part way through the long ride home.  

Go figure...

Style Blog Spotting

via Mister Mort

A sweet customer stopped in and bought a few pairs of our Middle English shoes the other day - navy for herself, brown for her boyfriend, and another pair for Mister Mort, the San Francisco based style blogger.  He spotted our shoes on a furniture dealer at a Paris flea market last fall.  Check it out here.

Let's Talk About Leather

If you wear Aurora Shoes then you know that the secret to our shoes' comfort lies mostly in our high quality leather.  We don't mean to downplay the importance of good design and solid soles, but if the top leather wasn't thick and supple enough to stretch like it does, we'd be making an entirely different kind of shoe. 

A sampling of our gorgeous leather awaiting straps and buckles

As you probably know, we pride ourselves on using locally sourced materials.  While Chicago may not sound very local to our fellow Central New Yorkers, it's just about as local as it gets in manufacturing these days.  Local enough in fact for Dave to plan a family road trip to visit the Horween Leather Company over the 4th of July weekend.  Dave enjoyed touring the factory and returned home with a renewed appreciation for the fine work that Horween does.

image via Horween.com

The Horween Leather Company was founded in 1905 and is one of the oldest continuously running tanneries in the United States.  Having started in the heyday of Chicago's meat packing industry, Horween is the only remaining tannery in the city today and is now in its 4th generation of family ownership.

Dave's view of the Cordovan Floor

In the leather industry Horween has become synonymous with quality.  They supply the only leather used to make NFL footballs and NBA basketballs.  We love using Horween's Chromexcel leather because it's the best we can find.  Like us, Horween understands that compromising on quality is not an option.  While perusing their website, the quote below struck a chord and reminds us of our own shoe making philosophy:

"As tanneries go we're not the biggest, the fastest or the cheapest, which means we need to be the best. Our business is built on doing things other people don't, won't or can't."
Arnold Horween Jr.
President, 1983 - 2003

Arnold Horween Jr. via Horween.com

 Horween's dedication to producing the finest leather for our shoes requires mature hides, top quality ingredients (food grade beef tallow, cosmetic grade beeswax and tree bark to name a few) and plenty of time.  It takes 28 production days to create the supple, weather resistant leather that we purchase.

Chromexcel leather air drying via Horween.com

When I asked Dave what part of his visit made the biggest impression, he focused on the amount of skill that leather production required and the attention to detail that Horween displayed throughout its production process.  We pride ourselves on the craftsmanship that goes into the making of our shoes and are glad to be working with the Horween Leather Company.

You can read more about Horween on their website or at their blog.