You Can Help Keep Marikina's Shoemaking Heritage Alive With This Fun DIY Kit

(SPOT.ph) 2020 was a tough year for the Marikina shoe industry—its main hub, the Marikina shoe gallery, closed down before the first year of the pandemic even ended. Thankfully, the industry has also had some hopeful moments since then with newer brands (like sneaker label Sanbera) introducing Marikina shoemaking to a younger generation as well as long-loved brands managing to stay afloat depite pandemic constraints. The industry, now over 130 years old, has long championed homegrown businesses, local entrepreneurs, and Filipino craftsmanship. If you want to help keep the tradition going as it braves the landscape of e-commerce, here’s one way you can do so in your own little way: Zapateria, a creative hub for footwear design, aims to foster the industry’s new generation of independent shoemakers by letting young creatives and budding designers experience the craft firsthand with their Make Your Own Slider kits.

What is Zapateria's Make Your Own Sliders Kit?

On the surface, this nifty DIY kit could be a creative new hobby for anyone who likes to work with their hands. But it’s much more than that: the set highlights the heritage of Marikina's shoemaking craft, making from home being a staple of the industry. The kit allows users to experience what it's like to make your own footwear by hand in the same way that a trained Marikina maker would, giving more people access to the century-old tradition and empowering designer hopefuls to try it for themselves.

Whats inside the Make Your Own Sliders Kit?

In the kit, you’ll find all the basic tools you'll need to make a simple pair of slip-on sandals (a.k.a. slides) with two buckled straps, a footbed, and a sole. Each kit comes with a set guide patterns and instructions to assist the maker in crafting their own pair along with materials like fabric, adhesive, sand paper, craft scissors, and more. You can order the kit in a variety of sizes for men and women—choose your own if you're making the slides for yourself or order a set in a friend's size if you'd like to gift them the kit or make the shoes for them. You can also take your pick from three colors (black, white, and red), depending on what shade you’d like your finished product to be.

Zapateria's Make Your Own Sliders Kit is available online.

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