East London

Unlike many of the students he mentors, his background is in science. Latif studied virology at Imperial College and learnt on the job, taking weekend and evening courses at London College of Fashion and going on to work with shoemakers Tim and Fiona Slack, which gave him a good grounding in footwear manufacturing and design. “Being a scientist, I understand being experimental in product development, but I also have so much to thank Tim and Fiona for,” he says.  “They have a wealth of knowledge and every time I have a query or challenge, I can be sure they will still guide me in the right direction.”

ROKER is known for its clean aesthetic, vertiginous chunky platforms, ankle boots and heeled monk shoes often with bright calf hair or colourful mock python print uppers. Although the collection is genderfluid, it also specialises in producing heels for men. The ready-to-wear collection retails from £400 to £650, while bespoke products including costume commissions starts from £1,000. Latif recently created boots for the Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black, for singer Sam Smith’s 2023 tour and regularly works with the celebrity stylist Harry Lambert. “I get the commissions through word of mouth, a brief comes in and then it’s up to me how I fulfil it,” he says.

Working in tandem with ready-to-wear designers, such as Ashish, the most recent designer he lent shoes to for a catwalk show, has helped build ROKER’s profile. “Though,” he adds, when it comes to runway shows, “I am never given enough time because people often don’t understand the complexities surrounding the making of footwear.”

From 2019 to 2023 ROKER received BFC New Gen funding. Indeed, a pair of the brand’s buckled white platform boots is included in Rebel: 30 Years Of London Fashion, the temporary exhibition at The Design Museum in London that ran until February 2024. These signature square toe boots also feature in a video that Latif commissioned an artist to make entitled ‘The Art and Craft of Pole’ set in an East London pole dancing club, unveiled during the February 2024 edition of London Fashion Week. ROKER’s latest video highlights representation and diversity. Entitled 0.02% its looks at Amy and Monty, amputees modelling with prosthetic legs. “I think the conversation about disability in modelling/fashion needs to be stronger and I wanted to support this,” says Latif.

Tarek, another self-confessed ‘East End shoemaker’ is located little more than a mile away. In July, he moved into the basement of a four-storey atelier at 2 Pecks Yard, off Hanbury Street, right in the heart of Spitalfields. He shares the space with Taillour, a contemporary bespoke tailoring business, meeting its founders, Lee Rekert and Fred Nieddu, at Sunbury Studios in E2 where they all occupied workshop spaces. Tarek’s East End credentials are as much to do with fashion as they are with location. They include three seasons of Fashion East sponsorship from 2009 to 2011 with its MAN initiative and a bespoke collection for Hostem, a ground-breaking boutique that helped to bring Redchurch Street and contemporary British style and craft to world attention.

The shoemaker keeps the craft of shoemaking alive through his role as an educator. From 2009 to 2016 he was part of the footwear teaching team on the footwear MA at the Royal College of Art. Since 2021 has been involved with shoemaking at Capel Manor College in Enfield teaching on the year-long Access to Higher Education Diploma. “Recently, we successfully upgraded the qualification so that it is protected in the annual funding allocation that so many technical courses fall foul of,” he explains. “Now, it is the only UK foundation level course with a formal qualification eligible for state funding such as the Advanced Learner Loan for those over 19.”

When we meet one rainy summer lunch time, I find Tarek surveying the virgin walls of his new space. Should he paint them, he asks rhetorically. I look around. There’s a cabinet housing samples that hint at his aesthetic and include past creations with linen laces or shoes sporting buckles with an aged patina. But before I have time to reply, he says that he’s enlisted a photographer friend to cast gels over recessed downlights to help him figure out a suitable colour.

It’s an unusual move for a man who mostly works alone.  Indeed, he is proud of the fact that he doesn’t post his creations to outworkers to complete different processes. He says that aside for Dominic Casey, a world class bespoke shoemaker he considers to be a friend and mentor, he is probably the only bespoke shoemaker in London that works this way. “It is one of the most distinct aspects about my business,” he explains. “Maybe it is a bit nerdy, but I think it makes my work more personal. It’s a big part of how I have chosen to work: to not merely be a cog in the machine of making a pair shoes, but to have my hands across all parts of the process.”

Tarek moved to London in 1997 armed with connections. His father was the fashion editor of Australian Playboy, while his British-born mother was once a fashion assistant on Queen, the forerunner of Harper’s & Queen. Shoes always appealed to him more than clothes. He cites the film Hans Christian Anderson where Andersen, played by Danny Kaye, is portrayed as a small-town cobbler with a childlike heart and a vivid imagination as something that chimed with him at an early age. His aim was to study at Cordwainers to be a shoe designer. Though it was never to be. Instead, he learnt on the job securing a two-week placement with the shoe designer du jour Georgina Goodman. Here, he met bespoke shoemaker Casey who persuaded Tarek to go down the bespoke footwear route. He then apprenticed and worked for West End shoemaker James Taylor from 2004 to 2008.