Hervé Brunelle, the last shoemaker: his little shoes always have the shape

In his bright workshop in Troësnes (Aisne), near Villers-Cotterêts, Hervé Brunelle, 60, is about to put hinges on wooden shoe trees to slip into shoes: “Shoe trees are real protections for shoes leather, he explains. If we don’t put anything in them, they will deform, shrivel up and the customer will no longer be able to put them on. And wood has the particularity of absorbing humidity from the inside. Once in the air, it dries…”