Daily Mail

Need a new pair of shoes in the right colour that fit like a glove? A handmade pair may be an expensive indulgence, but not, as SAM TAYLOR discovered, if you make them yourself.

Yes, I've always fancied a pair of handmade shoes, probably because I've spent so much time in shops trying to find a pair to fit my size six and a half feet. Unfortunately, it's in the same way that I've always fancied a waterside apartment at Cap Ferrat, or a 60ft schooner, or a husband who can't help shopping at Tiffany's. With the kind of prices you have to pay for a bespoke pair lovingly crafted to your exact measurements, the 60ft schooner is more likely.

So it was with great bravado that I announced I was off to get myself a pair of handmade shoes the other weekend. 'Sure,' was all my other half would say, sitting on his credit card. Little did he know fhat I was actually going to make my own. Kirsty Prescott and Melissa Needham, shoemakers to discerning brides and partygoers, were already boiling the kettle when I arrived at the small workshop of Prescott & Mackay in London's Covent garden.'We'll teach you how to make a pair of shoes In a weekend,' boasted their literature. At £120, including materials and as much tea and biscuits as I could consume, I didn't see how I could lose.

Edwina, a 35-year-old milliner from South London, Ashley, a 29-year-old Scottish architect and Milan, a 24-year-old fashion student from Japan, obviously thought the same. We were in this together, except, somehow, I suspected they probably had a bit more of a clue than I did.

Milan was already a dab hand with a pin cushion and Edwina even brought her own fabric, a deluxe roll of red snakeskin leather. Over our second cup, Kirsty and Melissa showed us some they had made earlier: sumptuous black velvet mules, with a delicious beaded trim.

I felt like a schoolgirl visiting the Blue Peter set. They spoke slowly and clearly, so as not to cause us alarm. We would make mules, because they were easiest for beginners. A mule conslsts of roughly five components: the insole board, heel, resin sole, the upper and, for that finishing touch, a leather-lined interior. The only thing needed was to stick all the bits together. Aarrgh. Another cup of sweet tea 'Keep calm,' Kirsty soothed.

Everything revolves around a thing called the Last, a cast of the foot up to the ankle. In real handmade shoe world, it takes a craftsman five years to learn how to make a Last, which is why people who have their shoes made for them often have to part with thousands of pounds for the priviledge.

Because none of us had five years to spare, our Lasts were already made, mercifully, with mine in an exact 6.5. By lunchtime the workroom was a flurry of shape-cutting glue pots and practice runs on the sewing machine.

Sensing I hadn't been near a bobbin since I made a pyjama case at Brownies, Kirsty let me wreak havoc on a scrap before allowlng me near the orange satin I'd chosen. Three punctured cuticles later and I had the makings of a left and right upper, complete with gauze stiffener and baby soft leather liner. 'The leather liner is the bit that makes it look really posh isn't it?' I beamed like an excited schoolgirl. 'Mmm,' Kirsty sighed in a Valerie Singleton kind of way. Milan, meanwhile, was effortlessly blending two fabrics together. She was in fashion and she meant business.

Getting the uppers to stay on the insole board while both are wrapped round the Last could have reduced a student cobbler to tears, but thankfully Melissa came along. 'This is how it's done, she expertly insisted. 'I see,' I nodded, keen to keep her attention focused on guiding me through tacking and gluing my two essential parts together.

By the end of the flrst day, I had two insole boards with uppers attached. I couldn't believe it. My dream satin shoes were in sight. Sunday morning brought the stark realisation that the shoe elfs hadn't appeared in the night; so I was still faced with the prospect of somehow getting the two-inch heels to marry the rest of the jigsaw.

Kirsty and Melissa say that a test of a good shoe's 'pitch' is that, with your shoe off on a flat surface, you should be able to just get your flnger under the toe of the shoe. A much higher gap and the heel is too low, much Iower and the heel is too high. After covering a plastic heel in orange fabric, then heating the glue-coated resin sole and moulding it round the inner arch of the heel, I had in my hand what looked like a mackerel fillet with a heel attached.

Another liberal application of industrial strength glue and the sole joined forces with the insole board, unbelievabIy passing the 'pitch' test. There was no question about it, I was on my way to my Blue Peter badge. It was a well-earned Custard Cream for me.

Admittedly my classmates had in front of them shoes that wouldn't have looked out of place in Bond Street, but as Kirsty kept pointing out, this wasn't a competition. Nonetheless, none of us could help sneakily slipping on our mules on for a quick game of 'look, look, mine are lovely. And they fit!' By the tlme we had finished our afternoon tea, all that was required was what they refer to in the handmade shoe world as 'the bespoke finishing touch'.

This was simply a case of sewing onto the insoles a gold Prescott & Mackay oval badge. This chic trademark sits neatly under my heel and is revealed only when my mules are strewn nonchalantly on the floor of my incredibly expensive penthouse suite...the one I shall be building next weekend.