We can now announce the finalists in our two prestigious contests: The World Championships of Shoe Shining and Patina 2025. The finals take place at the London Super Trunk Show on May 10th, 2025. We’ll have two Japanese and a Brit going head to head in the shine final, and two Frenchmen and a Swiss to battle it out for the patina title. See their submissions here.
You may read all about the London Super Trunk Show in this article, and we would appreciate it if you visit the event’s Facebook page and let us know if you intend to come and to please help share the event (or just follow it to get updates on things around it). It’s organized by Shoegazing, The Shoe Snob (myself), and Kirby Allison, and takes place on Saturday, May 10th, at Showcase.co on 12 Regent Street, in the very central parts of London.
There will be 14 shoe and menswear companies from around the globe exhibiting, a free shoe-shining service, a mirror shine masterclass, and more. The World Championships of Shoemaking will have its award ceremony and all of the competition shoes on dislpay. Plus the two other world champs contests, which are the focus of this article.
The qualification process, jury members, and how the finals will unfold are thoroughly explained in this article, so here we focus on showing the finalists’ submissions and let you know a bit about them. Both the World Championships of Shoe Shining and Shoe Patina are organized in collaboration with the shoe care company Saphir and the shoe brand Bridlen. As has been the case for several years now we had about 40 submissions to the two contests (thanks to all who sent in entries,). The entries come from all around the world, with some amateurs but nowadays we are seeing mainly professionals enter the contest.
The competition is getting tougher and tougher with more quality work shown each year, especially in the shine contest we might need to find a different qualification system that still makes it easy and fair for everyone to enter, but now so many entries are so good based on conditions set out that it’s tough for the jury to decide how to give out the points. Eventually, these are the ones who made it to the finals in London.
The World Championships of Shoe Shining and Patina 2025
The World Championships of Shoe Shining 2025 finalists
Atsuhiro Yoshidom, Japan.
We’ve seen more and more black shoes as shine entries, and a well-shined black dress shoe can really be a treat. Here Atsuhiro Yoshidom has also mixed in gold leaf in the polish, adding a nice touch even if it didn’t really affect the judgment of the actual shine. Atsuhiro has worked as a shiner for seven years, he is from Fukuoka and works for the shoe shine bar Boston & Re Olds, so he’s actually a colleague with last year’s world champion Nishigami Yoshihiro.
Mathew, United Kingdom
For the second time in the history of this contest, we have a military shoe shiner in the final. Mathew (since he’s serving in the military still, for security reasons, we’ll only use his first name) with many years in the British military runs Mr. Bull & Shine, a Shoe-Shine service geared toward military personnel. His videos, especially TikTok, have been viewed by millions. Normally Mathew uses various melted wax techniques, but for this entry, he shined them with only Saphir products, and boy did he do it well.
Ryu Niita, Japan
Medium brown aniline leather is given a wonderful traditional shine enhancement by Ryu Niita. The fact that the edges have been left relatively subtly shined is in this case positive, it enhances the vintage feel over the shoes and shows an understanding of the subject. Ryu is one of the leading shiners in Japan, who’ve won the Japanese Shoe Shine contest twice in a row. He’s been working for the shine bar chain Brift H* for thirteen years, and shined thousands of shoes by now.
The World Championships of Patina 2025 finalists
Rod Baudry, France
A relatively classic style of patina, executed to perfection. Super smooth transitions, very identical between the two shoes, with great attention to detail. Rod Baudry works for Corthay, has 14 years of experience painting shoes, and was in the final two years ago, but didn’t win that year. He is back for a second chance at glory.
Albet Gjukaj, Switzerland
A really vivid patina with well-made mottling, and great details like the green top of the welt. Neatly done sole as well. Albert Gjukaj has been twice in the Shine final, and last year also in the Patina final, still chasing his first world championship title. He runs the shoe retailer and shoe service shop Mr. Dapper in Luzern, Switzerland.
Toan Junie, France
He’s back again. For the first time, we have three previous finalists in a final, the patina one, but only one of them has previously won. Toan Junie was crowned world champion in 2022 but lost out to Morgane Lévêque last year. His entry is a wholecut painted to look like a cap toe balmoral oxford. It is really neatly made with excellent technique. Nowadays Toan mainly works for the French shoe brand Septieme Largeur.
Disclaimer: *As you may know, one jury member is Yuya Hasegawa, owner of Brift H, which finalist Ryu Niita works for. Here, entries were judged anonymously, and to double check we also removed Yuya’s points and Ryu was still a finalist (similar to how we did when a Berluti shoemaker won with another Berluti member in the jury, even if he didn’t know he judged a colleague). In London, a jury decision is made after discussion and a mutual agreement between all members, so an objective decision will be guaranteed.