Inside Glasgow's bespoke shoemakers

I love it.

"This is where we keep all the leathers," gestures Billy Reid, the factory manager at Buchanan Bespoke Footwear in Glasgow. Located a stone's throw from the River Clyde, the factory is a curious place, tucked away in an industrial area of Govan. We are inside the leather room, surrounded by tall steel shelves, each filled with every colour and texture of leather imaginable - even ostrich skin - sourced predominantly from Italy and England.

I'm drawn to the flesh-coloured tones, the bright reds and bold blues. "That's the sample shelf. It's a work in progress," smiles Reid, pointing to one ledge. "That is all the materials we hope to use in the future …"

The future being one filled with handcrafted, Highland-inspired brogues, made with the leather I see before me and combined with all manner of tartans and tweeds, in pretty much any combination imaginable - it's up to the customer.

Buchanan Bespoke Footwear is relatively new to the luxury footwear scene, having dipped its toes into the market last year, to a welcome reception. The company is making a pair for Rod Stewart, using the singer's namesake tartan; has made a pair for Sir Alex Ferguson, commissioned by Irn-Bru as a gift marking his retirement from Manchester United; and is currently working on three, shall we say, rather loud red pairs for members of bagpipe group the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. It is making about 10 pairs a week; an amount not to be sniffed at, given each pair is handmade by expert shoemakers, many of whom have been honing their skills for decades. For Buchanan Bespoke is part of Buchanan Orthotics, a family-run company that has been making shoes - about 8000 pairs a year; mostly speciality footwear for the NHS and private patients - since 1925.

They are one of only a few independent shoemakers in Scotland, and their Buchanan Bespoke range is a departure for the company, envisaged to provide an alternative for men interested in more than the standard ghillie brogue or black kilt shoe - boring in comparison to Buchanan's offerings - and one in which customers can choose a bespoke shoe of their own tartan or tweed choosing. They are not cheap - averaging £300 - but quality, craftsmanship and individuality come at a price.

Of course, I love shoes, but I don't have a clue how they are made, although Reid is going to show me today. But first I meet Ryan Currie, the marketing manager, who is responsible for spearheading the brand. We're in the company's conference room, which is being used as something of a brogue showroom, with examples for me to touch and, well, sniff. Brogues in a spectrum of leather, from blue to brown, taupe to tan, line the table, with tartan accents in subtle, soft hues to bold biscuit tin brights. And those are just men's shoes. The company is designing a youthful ladies brogue using feminine tartans, combined with sartorially-inspired pink and purple leathers, which will hopefully be released by the summer; as well as accessories, such as wash bags.

Two pairs stand out: a loud, blue leather brogue, underscored by a brash orange and blue tartan made for Irn-Bru as an example of what a brand-inspired kilt shoe would look like for them. Another pair, with the softest leather I've ever felt, is made from wild Scottish deer skin. Currie says: "The only thing with wild deer skin is, when you're actually cutting the leather, you have to cut around the bullet holes."

Currie tells me his mother - a vegetarian and boss of the company - had reservations about using a wild animal more associated with bambi than brogues, but allowed it because the animals are not culled for that purpose.

Diana Currie took over the helm after her husband retired five years ago and brought her 33-year-old son (one of Ryan Currie's grandparents was an original owner of the company) on board about a year ago.

He is one of four brothers and the only one working for the family business. One brother is in New York pursuing a career as an actor; another is a chiropractor turned entrepreneur; and the third is a TV presenter for BT Sport. "So there's a bit of pressure to compete," smiles Currie, who has a Masters in business from Glasgow University.

Yet Currie doesn't take the credit for the new range, telling me the concept was the brainchild of the company's financial controller, who had the idea to manufacture shoes using tartan. Harnessing the help of Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International - and with Currie, the forward-thinking next generation managing the marketing - the long-term goal is to drive the brand into America, Australia and "anywhere we can," where they hope to tap into expat communities and a worldwide fascination with all things Scottish.

"We've just sent our first pair to Australia and got a nice email back from the customer saying he loved them. Because it's a made to order service, you build up a rapport with the customers."

The brand is also in talks with American suppliers. Buchanan Bespoke Footwear seems a shining example of a small Scottish firm aiming to take advantage of the booming interest not just in British manufacturing, but in the Scottish textile market. The company sources its tartan from top Scottish mills and their tweed comes from Johnstons of Elgin. "It's been great working within Scotland," Currie adds, "because the community of companies in the textiles and leather industries is great. Scottish textiles are doing so well and there's incredible interest internationally. So it's a good time to be doing this - especially when tartan is particularly popular."

Back on the factory floor - behind an unassuming narrow door that offers no clue as to the hive of activity behind it - manager Reid is taking me into the cutting and stitching room. Women work over sewing machines, heads down as their fingers manipulate the textiles in front of them. This is going to be me in a minute; but first, I'm drawn to an old tailor's unit, which has row upon row of narrow drawers, each housing a different cutting knife - effectively a template - representing a specific shape, style and size of shoe. There must be hundreds of them, each marked with a different name of shoe, such as Panama or Maryland.

"If we are going to make a size-eight Buchanan brogue, for example," Currie explains, joining our tour, "we get the size-eight Buchanan brogue knife out."

The leather and fabric is then cut to this knife with a press - a giant cutting machine that stamps out the shape of the material. The machine click-clacks loudly as it cuts and simultaneously punches the holes out the leather.

I tentatively have a go. It's cumbersome, but the machine does all the work for me.

"Once the flat outline of the leather is cut, it is lined and stitched," Reid says.

With our "components" cut, we head over to the sewing machines. Before I sit down at Liz Mackie's machine, she tells me how she managed to accidently "stitch" her thumb with the machine. Ouch. However, with her guidance, I manage not to make the same mistake.

Behind Mackie sits Reid's wife, Jean. She's been there six years; Reid almost 14. The pair are among the company's 55 employees, some of whom have been with Buchanan for 30 years. There is a low staff turnover. Trainees join under apprenticeship schemes and are trained inhouse. Reid comes from a long line of shoemakers. "My dad, brothers, sisters, granddad and grandmother - the whole family were shoemakers," he tells me proudly. "When I left school, I went straight into shoemaking. I always said it was only short term - but that was 37 years ago. I'm still doing it, still love it. Last year we started on the Buchanan range and I love working on them."

"We didn't want to do a sort of Italian shoe, but a chunkier Scottish brogue," Currie adds. "This is why we picked grain leathers, to get a bit of Scottish identity into the shoe. We're pushing toward deer skin because we can source it in Scotland and because, many years ago, original ghillie brogues were made from deer skin. They'd actually punch holes in them to let the water out of the shoes when they were running through the Highlands. So we've tried to go back to the roots of the shoe."

With the stitching completed on my "uppers," we move to the lasting department. This is where the final piece of the shoe-making puzzle is completed. A "last" is a foot-shaped form in which the shoemakers will mould the upper over to create the body of the shoe. This is done with the help of a complex-looking machine that, to me, looks like an intimidating mass of wires and metal. "See, what that does..." points out Reid as he guides me in using it, "...is shape the upper over the last. So now it's starting to become a shoe shape. The machine pulls the material over and the blades tighten the leather down around the last." The result - once the sole is added - is the finished product. The whole process normally takes around a week.

"All that's left after that," Currie says, "is to inspect them, box and package them. The box is stamped with a Robert Burns poem and they're out the door."

My day making shoes is nearly over, but before I go I'm introduced to Bert Turner, the bespoke shoemaking guru. Turner started with the company in 1978 and is responsible for making all the custom-made shoes for people requiring speciality wear due to foot-related conditions, from minor ailments such as bunions to extremes such as elephantitis, a condition which creates a severe enlargement of the skin and tissues, especially in the legs.

In creating these shoes, Turner takes a plaster cast of the foot in question and creates a hand-cut last. He shows me the room which houses all the lasts - literally hundreds of them, in every size and shape - which are stored for years to come.

But that's another story for another day. As Currie leads me out, he enthuses about the future. "There's a lot going on this year, so we're trying to get involved."

The company would love to be a part of the Commonwealth Games; perhaps in making matching tartan brogues to go with Team Scotland's official tartan.

"It's a natty and bright tartan. I heard the Scottish team will be wearing kilts, so we are trying to work on having them wear our shoes. It's going to be an interesting year for Scotland. And for us, too, I hope." n

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