APJ Lifestyle Magazine

The magazine with tips, trends and all you need to know about a healthy plantbased lifestyle, mindset & meditation, exercise & sports, sustainable fashion, vegan boots & of course animals.

In this weeks edition:

• Who makes your shoes?
• Where do the materials come from?
• From design to production, how does a design come to life in a real shoe?

Who makes your shoes?

It all starts with a great design...

I cannot be grateful enough to have found the most dedicated designer ever! Nicole has been with us from the start & she is a great designer. Super creative, pro-active and also a vegan (which is so nice & easy to understand each other). We both love animals and are super dedicated to show how cool boots made of plantbased materials can be!

Nicole and I spend week to make the designs, and work on finalizing the smallest details for days. We make everything so clear before sending the designs to the factory, who then start making the 1st proto-types.

After sending the 1st sketch to the factory, they start making the proto-types. And normally there are always adjustments to make after receiving the protos. For example, we 1st made the stiletto on a 10 cm high heel, when I tried them on, I almost fell down from this height, lol.

So we adjusted the heel to 8 cm's and added extra details to the design. This is a super complex process, because using a lower heel means, the last has to change aswell. And this not only requires making everything all over again, but also making new lasts.

And then it's time to visit the factory

After receiving the 2nd proto-types it's time to visit the shoe factory, and our suppliers in Portugal. Nicole and I usually go together, so we can immediately put all changes into the design on the computer. These are usually very long days, where we talk about the tiniest adjustments, visit the suppliers to make sure everybody exactly knows what to do.

Looking back at where it all started, I definitely realize I did not make it easy on myself. Have you ever noticed that a lot of shoes in the shops have the same outsoles? Just a different upper (top of the shoe), in a different colour. If you for example look at sneaker brands, a lot of them use the same sole, and only adjust the top of the shoe and add their own logo.

But I did not want to do that. Starting A Perfect Jane I wanted the brand to be unique and stand out of everything else. I wanted it to be detailed and luxurious. And after a million of grey hairs I can definitely say, it worked out. We've spend weeks designing our green outsole with the printed leaf pattern. Even the sole supplier could not believe it was possible, but look at how cool it turned out?

And when this is all finished, we're just getting started....

After all details have been adjusted, everything is 100% ready, we give the GO for production. This is also a complex process, because we depend on several different suppliers, from shoe box, to the tissue paper in the box, to the supplies of the apple leather, zippers, heels, soles, transportation, product photo's. Everything has to come together.

And of course, it never does.................. There is always an obstacle along the way, a delay, something that isn't possible anymore, just got more expensive, etc. This process always requires a lot of flexibility from everyone and is not always the happiest time in my life to be honoust.

Work hard, Play hard

This is definitely something Nicole and I always keep in mind. We always find our way to this cute little vegan restaurant and try literally everything on the menu. Like this time we went to Lineapelle in Milan where we were looking for new materials.

Lucky me that Nicole's 2nd home is Italy and she knows her way around there. So we ended up in this gorgeous place for some weldeserved delicious vegan food.

The result

After months of working on a collection (in case of the stiletto boot, it took us almost 2 years), this is the result. I am super proud of our new collection, it's Luxurious, Chic and yet also super versatile to dress up or down.

Our NEW COLLECTION is NOW available on our website (expected deliveries starting from end of september).

In next weeks Edition:

• Be surprised!
• We are looking for new guestwriters. Are you one of them? Send me a message

Follow the latest updates on:

Instagram: A Perfect Jane | Website: A Perfect Jane

Love, Suzanne