BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - May 2016

WORKING FOR
THE WEEKEND
Fluevog Shoes has been championing the weird
and wonderful for more than 40 years now. Bright
colours, encouraging messages etched in the soles,
that gorgeous new shoe smell, Victorian inspired
with enough clunky angles to make them delightfully
disgraceful, these shoes are unconventional
Vancouver originals. The brand’s namesake, John
Fluevog himself, has been in the shoe business
since the early 1970s. Collaborating with others in
the beginning of his career, Fluevog in its current
incarnation is John’s solo company. Having started it
independently when Fluevog shops started popping
up in the 1980s, it was John’s two hands building
every aspect from the ground up. Now with 20
stores all across North America, Fluevog has many
helpers to lighten the load. For John, success doesn’t
mean taking a back seat, still at the helm of this ship
of leather oddities he is steering Fluevog against
the current of trends and tendencies and towards
much weirder waters. Following the beat of his own
drum, John Fluevog is injecting soul into your soles,
one square heel or elaborate buckle at a time.
BeatRoute: When you first branched off from Fox and
Fluevog to start your own company, what did your dayto-day
look like as you built the brand?
John Fluevog: It was like super hectic, full of
fear and trepidation. I did everything, all the
advertising, I designed the shoes, was doing
HR, opening the stores, visiting the stores,
handling the cash flow, inventory, everything.
with John Fluevog of Fluevog Shoes
BR: Fast-forwarding to present day, what does a day in
the office look like for you?
JF: Well it’s a lot better because I’ve got other people
doing stuff. I should have done that way sooner in
my life, but there you go. I’ve got other people doing
things, so like with the design team I generally set the
mood and the themes of the season and I will do the
sort of baseline drawings, then they’ll come in and
tune them up and show them to me, and it’s great.
BR: Why do you think nice shoes are important?
JF: Well they make you look cute, right? They make
you look cute and they’re what’s between you and
the earth. You can spend a lot of money on clothes,
on sweet jeans, but if you’ve got a crappy pair of
shoes on, it just kills everything. When you put on
a nice pair of shoes you can wear the most simple
jeans and t-shirts and look great. Maybe it’s the
last thing a lot of people consider, but to me being a
person that thinks about their footwear, that’s key.
BR: Many artists and musicians have been seen
sporting Fluevogs over the years, is this a symbiotic
relationship? Do art and music heavily influence your
designs?
JF: Well I think the thing is that music makes people
dream, it makes them step out of themselves. In the
same way, I feel that fashion can do that. Also, like
musicians, I put a lot of myself into the designs; I put
slogans and I put stories and messages on the shoes. I
think when you express your humanity in whatever you
by Maya-Roisin Slater
photo by Sarah Whitlam
do it takes on a different depth; a depth of life. I think
those are also really important things in music, you
need to put your own vibe into it, your own energy.
BR: What’s your favourite music to design to?
JF: Probably the blues, because it’s so simple.
It’s simple and it’s predictable, it’s familiar to me.
It’s funny that the blues can make you feel good,
but the blues makes me feel good if that makes
any sense. Maybe it’s the simplicity of the music,
maybe it’s the raw lyrics, I love the blues.
BR: What was the last live concert you attended?
JF: Oddly enough on this particular day, it was Prince.
It was at the Winery Club in New York, it was maybe a
year and a half ago. The Winery is a bar and a club in
New York in the Lower West Side, and he came on at two
in the morning and played until five. I don’t know if I
lasted until 5, but it was a small venue and he was right
there, like 50 feet away from me and he sang his heart
out. It was awesome; I couldn’t believe I was there. The
band was major hot; it was this smoking band. I loved it.
BR: What do you hope to achieve in the next year?
JF: I hope I can let it go more. I think there’s a sense
that, as a business grows and becomes bigger it weighs
on one more. You’ve got to create and keep the thing
going, be responsible for all these jobs. I’m hoping
that I can learn to be at peace more, and let it go.
Celebrate International Fluevog Day on May 15
4
May 2016