One of Canada’s — and the world’s — most beloved footwear designers, John Fluevog continues to dominate the hearts (and soles) of fashionable people. Since 1970, his business has grown exponentially and continues to do so with every year.

Fluevog has been featured in FAJO in an exclusive interview in 2010, and then again in 2012, when he won the Shoe Person of the Year award, with a special gala at the Bata Shoe Museum.

This fall, we caught up with the shoe legend himself during his trip to Toronto to join thousands of Fluevogers and many renowned fashion collaborators for the Flummunity Fest. We met up at his colourful store in Toronto’s Distillery District to discuss his latest projects and passions.

HANNAH YAKOBI: Welcome back to Toronto! It’s exciting that your annual Flummunity Festival is taking place again. Where does its name originate?

JOHN FLUEVOG: I didn’t come up with it, actually. It was driven by my customers who started their own Facebook page, and their own group that they called Flummunity.

HANNAH YAKOBI: But you like the name, obviously?

JOHN FLUEVOG: Of course. I like Flu-everything. Why not! (laughs)

HANNAH YAKOBI: You have so many renowned individuals coming this year and the event has been taking place for a long time. On what basis do you select participants?

JOHN FLUEVOG: The people that we have done collaborations with that’s kind of how they’re here. Jen Gunter is coming, Anna Sui unfortunately got COVID, but her assistants are here. And everyone else. Zandra Rhodes and George [Clinton], of course. I’ve known George for a number of years and we just like working together, and I like the art he does. The collabs are a natural process, I’d say. Some people come to us or we go to them, it becomes symbiotic.

HANNAH YAKOBI: How have your shoes evolved over the years? What’s the same and what’s different?

JOHN FLUEVOG: They’re amazingly the same and they have the same energy, and then they are better. When I started, it was difficult for me to get my shoes made. So, the biggest difference now is it’s easier for me to get them produced because I have a little more volume. I have the infrastructure in the company to get them made. And I am doing more styles and more unusual things I ever have, actually.

HANNAH YAKOBI: Where do you make the shoes these days? Is it still in Europe?

JOHN FLUEVOG: Mostly in Europe, in Portugal, some in Mexico, Peru, Vietnam and a few in China. Those are the main places. We have little factories here and there. And we’ve been working with those factories for years.

HANNAH YAKOBI: You were one of the first designers to make sustainable shoes, and you started doing this years ago before it really became mainstream. How central is that to your work now?

JOHN FLUEVOG: It still is. I wouldn’t call it essential, but I would say it’s something that I’m very cognizant about and work very hard to obtain. It’s not easy. If you start digging down when people say things are sustainable, there’s a lot of layers to it. We do very little shipping by aircraft anymore. It’s all done by boat. And then, of course, the materials and how they’re sourced and how they biodegrade. Often there is a tug and a pull between environmentally friendly things and leathers. People who don’t want leather are maybe not understanding that there’s more biodegradable substance to it than to a lot of synthetics. It’s not always easy to have all the criteria.

HANNAH YAKOBI: When you won the Shoe Person of the Year, you said you were really happy to be in the business of footwear. How do you think the pandemic has affected fashion in general?

JOHN FLUEVOG: I’m not sure that we know how it has yet. I think we’re just kind of coming out of it. A lot of companies didn’t make it. For the ones that did, there’s a euphoria and kind of a rush, and I think now it’s sort of a payback time. Many people had government assistance, there was a lot of easy money around and interest rates were low. The economy has always been shifting, and we’re shifting in different ways now, but the pandemic was a bigger blip, I think, than we all realize. We’re still feeling the effects of it, and we’ll feel them over the next year even more.

HANNAH YAKOBI: How do you think the modern technology is affecting the creative design process?

JOHN FLUEVOG: There are a lot of people working really hard in this industry. There are a lot of inventive things going on. I think technology will lead to more creativity. We’ll see it blossom.

HANNAH YAKOBI: What is your advice to emerging designers in Canada? It’s a difficult market to break into.

JOHN FLUEVOG: Be yourself. When you start trying to follow a trend or looking like somebody else, you get lost in the shuffle. The very best thing I can say is: be yourself.

HANNAH YAKOBI: And that’s sort of circling back to the collaborations that you’re doing. What are some of the starting points when you start the brainstorming part of doing a new collaboration? Is there something that you always want to include or is every single one of them different?

JOHN FLUEVOG: They’re all different. What’s really nice about George, for example, is that he does his own paintings. When I started working with him, I actually didn’t know that. When I found it out, I thought that was crazy, that was so cool. And then we started putting his imagery and his paintings onto the product, and that was fun. I get to do my shapes, and then we put his images on. It’s a fun collab. It’s great.

HANNAH YAKOBI: I find your shoes to be very comfortable; I could wear them for 12 hours and not feel any pain. Normally, pretty shoes are not comfortable. Is there a secret to how they’re structured?

JOHN FLUEVOG: In the footwear industry, there is magic in ‘a last’. This is a form that a shoe is made on. Italians call it ‘forma’. You need to get that right because that last has to fit so many different feet. If I could make just one shoe for you and sculpt it by hand to fit your foot, strangely, it may not be that comfortable because it would fit almost too well. You need a little room, a bit of space. And so those lasts that we have, and then we build things around, are really the magic and the foundation of the Fluevog brand. They have all the elements that will fit the most people. And I have developed them over the years. Some of them work better than others. And then you can change the leathers on them, and the shoe will fit entirely different. So, there’s a bit of magic and naturalness to it.

HANNAH YAKOBI: The last question is about your Fluevog book, which you wrote a couple of years ago. Back then, you said there are still quite a few chapters in the John Fluevog story. What’s the current chapter and what’s next?

JOHN FLUEVOG: When I was on tour with the book, COVID had just started. I was in Australia and I wasn’t sure I was going to get out of Australia at that time. So, that’s been a really big chapter. And what was sort of odd is that during Covid, the company did very well. All my stores were closed and I thought, ‘That’s it, I’m finished, I’m done.’ But no, not true. All my stores were closed, but people went online. Even in the very worst year of 2020, the company still came out fine. It’s amazing. It’s a real blessing. I can’t really explain the full reason why, but that’s the way it was for me.

HANNAH YAKOBI: I think it’s because your shoes bring happiness to people.

JOHN FLUEVOG: Yeah. And they weren’t even using them! They weren’t even going out or partying. They were buying shoes and putting them on a shelf.

HANNAH YAKOBI: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

JOHN FLUEVOG: I’m just so thankful for this event and that we can have here in Toronto. It’s a little bit overwhelming for me, truthfully. I didn’t really start it and I kind of feel like I’m a bit of an outsider, but I know that is a real privilege to be connected with it and to be here. It’s an honour.