Pointer Footwear

By Author: Lucy Carter
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Pointer Footwear is a London-based footwear company that was founded in 2004 with the objective of creating casual, simple and well-designed shoes. Gareth Skewis, the company's founder and general manager, works alongside Rose Choules, the head designer, and art directors Mat Fowler and Hannah Draper to produce classic, high quality shoes with elements of art, design and even music. They're the antithesis of technical sports trainers and limited-edition sneakers.

The company almost has the feel of a family business, thanks to the fact that Gareth, Mat and Hannah are long-time friends who would go to indie gigs together. Then a mutual friend introduced Gareth to Rose and Pointer was born, after Gareth left Silas and Maria to form his own company. Each one of them comes from distinct backgrounds and has different ideas in relation to design, footwear, art, music and life, but that hasn't hampered their professional collaboration. They push each other for honest opinions and distil all of their disparate ideas to produce the best possible product. But the foursome does agree on some things. For instance, they are all interested ...
... in making comfortable, moccasin and vulcanized shoes in innovative designs that aren't just remakes of old styles. Quality materials and clean lines are a must, and comfort matched with a lo-fi look is what they're after in the finished product.

But the idea of creating a lo-fi image doesn't mean they're opposed to "space-age" sole systems. Gareth and his team are real fans of new features in footwear and believe that progress in both shoe production and design is key. What they're trying to do in design is take shoes back to the simple lo-fi look and feel of the 70s. They try to use a hands-on approach whenever possible, creating their own stuff without minding what other people might think. It's an attitude inspired in their skateboarding and musical backgrounds.

If you were to ask Gareth what inspires Pointer, he might cite things like grey afternoons in the rain, taking on massive footwear companies, Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth, the first Pixies gig he ever saw, tie dye shoelaces, traditional Zulu hand painted hut prints, Iggy Pop, funny comments written in public bathrooms, and Staffordshire Bull Terriers. With plenty of material to inspire them and loads of talent to draw on, it's no wonder that Gareth and his team have met with such brilliant success thus far.
Terrence Jones is a fashion student in London, and avid fan of clothing labels like YMC.