The annual Cordwainers Footwear Awards took place earlier this month in central London where a packed audience, including leading names in footwear and fashion, saw 34 finalists compete for the top prizes in Craft of Shoemaking and Footwear Design.
Footwear legend, Manolo Blahnik CBE, was awarded the Sue Saunders Award for Excellence in acknowledgment of his dedicated commitment to creativity and craftsmanship. Collecting the award Kristina Blahnik, CEO of Manolo Blahnik, said the award was a “remarkable honour” as her uncle had always held Sue in the highest esteem.
New for 2026 was the ‘Emerging Sole’ award named in memory of the late Daniel Charkow, a young Canadian footwear designer who trained at the London College of Fashion (LCF). In a moving tribute to their son, Stephen and Carol Charkow praised LCF winner Haiyu Bo’s creativity, depth of thought, and conceptual approach which embodied Daniel’s design vision.
For this year, the 13th Awards ceremony, first prize in the design category and winner of the Cordwainers Footwear Trophy was Ukrainian student Yevheniia Mizevych of LCF whose submission ‘The Mine’ drew on her family’s heritage – with pit ponies and coal mine conveyor belts part of her unique design inspiration.
Katie Greenyer, Chair of the design judging panel, said: “Student design awards should always push boundaries. They’re about more than commercial potential – they’re a platform for bold ideas, experimentation and creative expression. The catwalk is where those ideas truly come alive.”
Winner of the Craft of Shoemaking Award for 2026 (CoSA) was Matthew Gill, graduate of the Cordwainers Footwear BA course at LCF, whose first-placed wool and leather boots explored the idea of shoes as objects of skills, failures, affordances and tactile engagement.
Second place went to full-time engineer Damon Ma with his metallic green, storm-welted monkey boots, and third place went to luxury leather artist, Ross Edwin Bell, with a pair of riding boots, their elegant simplicity belying a complex handsewn construction.
James Ducker of Carréducker, sponsor of the award, said there had been an exciting uplift in creativity: “The finalists’ work exemplifies the variety of hand skills and materiality involved in shoemaking, that and the passion, dedication and time needed – carved out from work, studies, and family life – to realise a pair of shoes or boots.”
The 2026 awards brought together footwear names, makers, designers and influencers from across the industry including Patrick Cox; Caroline Groves; Kinky Boots shoemaker Thomas Rowe and ‘King of Trainers’, Franklin Boateng, alongside other leading designers and makers including Clarks, Cheaney and Paul Smith.
Mr Andrew Peal, Master of the Cordwainers, praised the finalists for heeding the call “to be bold; be creative”. Footwear design and manufacture is worth over £700 million in the UK alone and Mr Peal said the Cordwainers would continue to “encourage and celebrate the talent that is a keystone of the British shoe industry”.
