About Us
Our Journey
Fumu’s story started when I was studying Economics in London. I was fascinated by how well made shoes can be resoled and brought back to life. Growing up in Singapore, there is no culture of goodyear welted or resoleable shoes, most people wear cemented shoes and throw them out once the soles wore down.
This led me on a pursuit on shoes, I learnt that goodyear welted shoes actually evolved from traditional hand welted shoes and it piqued my interest and I had to learn how to make a pair, by hand.
Determined to learn, I searched for places to learn shoemaking, knocking on doors at bespoke shoemakers in the west end. Unfortunately none could offfer formal training and my other options were Italy or Japan. I was working part time at Joseph Cheaney then and it so happened that the Japanese distributor came to visit and I boldly asked for a job to work in Japan. It worked.
From there I found a shoemaking school helmed by Noriyuki Misawa and after acquiring the foundational skills, I sought out a shoemaker, Kiyo Udagawa, living more than 2hours away from me, who offered advanced training. Eventually worked part-time for over a year at Yohei Fukuda before deciding to spend time developing my own line of shoes.
Eventually I moved back to Singapore in 2025 to set up a workshop and launched my first collection, the Travellers Collection.
Through my shoemaking journey, I hope to inspire others to embark on the path less travelled, push boundaries and step out of their comfort zone.
