Oldranda The man who paints shoes Andrea Gatti, aka Oldranda, is passionate about the art of Patina, which he masterfully applies to shoes that, after passing under his hands, become unique and precious.
Fine footwear has always been in the DNA of Andrea Gatti, born in the Seventies in Vigevano, a north Italy town that in those years established itself as the European capital of footwear.
As a child, he saw his parents painting shoe soles and artistic works teemed around him: his two grandparents were restorers and craftsmen. The soundtrack of his days was the sound of sewing machines for uppers and he grew up smelling the pungent smell of tenacio.
This context and his innate passion for art and details generated the Oldranda project: a special series of one-of-a-kind footwear that also required entire days of work to perform the Patina, the Glacage and paint the sole. They are 100% customizable shoes, MTO, MTM, Bespoke.
For him, shoes are the equivalent of a painter’s untouched canvas or a writer’s blank page: a surface on which to unleash one’s imagination and bring out one’s creative nature. He is a man of a thousand interests and a talented shoemaker, who has made patina his canvas.
Yes, because Gatti’s true passion is the artistic coloring of footwear, expressed in words accessible to most. The starting point is always the same, the shoe with crust leather (neutral white) to which Old Randa approaches with flair and creativity.
One of the latest applications created by Gatti is Grape Must, obtained from wine must. The phases of this process are various and detailed, the shoes are first immersed in the must for about a week; then a washing process is carried out.
The next two steps, always in contact with the must, take several weeks, after which the shoes are meticulously cleaned and finally the customized soles are mounted, with anthropological tables from the 17th century and the typical arching of Old Randa shoes is carried out.
The final touch is given by the cirage (polishing that gives the leather porcelain reflections) to enhance every single nuance given by the must and the time elapsed. It doesn’t end there.
Andrea’s shoes can also have hand-painted soles, “My passion for details pushes me to work even for 10 hours on a single pair of shoes” and the result is never the same as any other. In short, more than a unique piece, an unrepeatable shoe
