About us

Thomas Rowe moved from Canada to London in 2009 where he discovered his passion for shoemaking. After working at T & F Slack Shoemakers factory in London, he moved away from the factory setting and created his own bespoke shoe making business The Parachute Collective in the Autumn of 2013. Through his workshop he creates bespoke handmade-to-order footwear and offers a full spectrum of bespoke shoe making courses. Since opening his workshop Thomas has also been a guest teacher of Cordwainery at ICANMAKESHOES and London College of Fashion (University of the Arts London). During the beginning of 2020, Thomas trained up 2 highly skilled makers and prepared his workshop to produce for film and television costume department. While things were quiet during the beginning of Covid19 Thomas researched and reached out to some of the most well known names in film costume design, including Colleen Atwood, Penny Rose, Sammy Differs, Lindy Hemming and Garish Phillips. During 2020/21 Thomas and his new crew of bespoke footwear specialists produced over 70 pairs of shoes for 9 feature films, 4 television series and 5 live theatre productions. Thomas and his team are looking forward to working with new designers and continuing to handcraft a whole new reality of footwear from any era to any planet.

The team

Since expanding into a new phase for the workshop to fully cater towards the film, television and theatre industry we have hired some truly talented makers in our trade, our team is efficient, knowledgeable, precise with over 20 years collective experience. Nina Laumann was trained up by Thomas in 2020 and hired full time 2021, she has extensive knowledge and passion for costume design and making prior to becoming a bespoke shoemaker. Emily Botterman has joined our small but growing team recently, with a degree in Bespoke shoemaking and years of film footwear under her belt already. we are looking forward for our team and community to grow and for our handmade craft to reach viewers around the world.