SSIA's Silver Cup Awards

Since the 1930s, the Silver Cup Contest has recognized excellence in s

hoe repair craftsmanship. SSIA's

founders recognized that quality craftsmanship is at the core of success in the shoe repair industry and created this contest as a means to recognize it and promote it.

Awards were presented 111th Annual Convention July 25-26, 2015 in Jacksonville. Congratulations to the UK shoe repairer Al King of The Menders who followed up his success in the JR Shoe Repairer of the year 2014 by winning the SSIA World Champion Shoe Repair Competition in Jacksonville, Florida on Saturday.

We featured Al King's work in a blog post before on SOMSR! He creates amazing hand carved images into the soles of shoes. And this was a well deserved win for him.

This contest is designed to reflect the standard of “re-crafting” or “re-manufacturing” that has been set for today’s shoe repairers.

Winning entries should look like they just came out of the box at the shoe store.

A repaired shoe must be submitted with its unrepaired mate. “Unrepaired” means never before repaired. The judges need an unrepaired shoe to judge how well the other shoe has been restored to its original condition.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be the next world champion? Find more information on SSIA’s website http://www.ssia.info/