How Dutch shoemakers keep an 850-year-old clog tradition alive
There are only 10 clog makers left in the Netherlands hand-carving wooden shoes. And there are even fewer clog painters. The craftspeople who are left are near retirement. To keep their businesses alive, they've gotten creative. At one of the oldest clog studios still standing, Martin Dijkman recreates Dutch masterpieces out of thousands of miniature clogs.
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00:00It takes half a day and a solid block of wood
00:04to carve just one pair of traditional Dutch clogs,
00:07or klompen.
00:09Farmers and factory workers across the Netherlands
00:11have worn these wooden shoes for over 800 years.
00:15Every village has a clog maker,
00:17like a bakery or butcher.
00:21But today, there are only 10 left in the whole country.
00:26In the early 1900s,
00:27machines largely replaced hand carvers,
00:31and then wearing wooden clogs fell out of style.
00:34Today, klompen are mostly sold as souvenirs.
00:38That's left clog makers and painters
00:40juggling multiple businesses,
00:42or inventing an entirely new kind of art to stay afloat.
00:46Maarten Dijkman recreated this Dutch masterpiece
00:49with more than 13,000 mini clogs.
00:53We visited the Netherlands
00:54to see how one of the oldest klompen businesses
00:56is still standing.
01:01A pair of clogs starts with a fresh block of wood
01:03from a willow or poplar tree.
01:06It doesn't weigh much when it dries.
01:09When you have a hard wood, it's also heavy.
01:12So when it's finished,
01:13it should be you have a lot of kilos on your foot.
01:18Maarten makes sure to avoid any knots in the wood,
01:20like this new branch forming.
01:22So it's not good.
01:23Get a hole in the shoe afterwards.
01:27He then chops out the rough shape of a shoe.
01:30Maarten is a fourth-generation clog maker,
01:32and he still uses the axe his father gave him
01:35when he was 12.
01:37The blade's handle is curved to help protect his hand.
01:40When it's straight, it will cut your fingers.
01:45But he still has to be careful.
01:47If he cuts too much, then he has to start all over again.
01:51Has that ever happened to you before?
01:52Yeah, many times.
01:54So you have to practice a lot.
01:56Earlier days, there were schools.
01:59It take you seven years to learn it.
02:02Klompen schools don't exist anymore.
02:05So Maarten learned everything from his father.
02:08The Dijkman family has been carving clogs
02:11in the town of Luttenberg for over 100 years.
02:14Maarten took over the family business in 1997.
02:18Today, he lives behind his workshop,
02:20and he has clogs, well, everywhere.
02:25You need three, four pairs in one year.
02:29Maarten shapes the shoe on a wooden bench
02:31his father built over 50 years ago.
02:34The long blade on top is called a palmus,
02:36and it's also about a half-century old.
02:40He starts by carving the outside of the clog,
02:42peeling off slice after slice.
02:48The two pieces have to be even.
02:51Oh, this one is too high.
02:52This one is a little bit, yeah, this is more pointed.
02:57I have to start again.
02:58Yeah.
03:03Maarten can now begin digging out the inside of the shoe,
03:06starting with two holes.
03:08All these spoon drills he inherited
03:10are more than 80 years old.
03:14This one is called a lepelboer
03:16and works like an ice cream scoop.
03:20He uses this larger lepelboer
03:22to carve out the space between the two starter holes.
03:27You can see it's very intensive.
03:31Slowly, he works his way down to the toe box,
03:34removing rosettes of wood with each turn.
03:39He checks the length every step of the way
03:41with this old-school ruler.
03:44Maarten says shoemakers used to measure clogs
03:47with their thumbs.
03:48But Napoleon invented the centimeters,
03:52and the wooden shoe at that time,
03:54and they have to go over two centimeters.
04:00Today, he's working on a pair for a child.
04:03The size must be 20, 20 centimeters.
04:09Next up, he carves out the toe box and the arch.
04:13This step, he says, takes the longest.
04:16When you have a little stone in your shoes,
04:19you feel that.
04:20So, yeah, you have to make it smooth.
04:24Lastly, he forms the heel.
04:27It's about 3 1⁄2 centimeters tall.
04:31One final measurement,
04:32and he can begin smoothing the outside of the shoe.
04:37So this is the nicest part.
04:39Maarten says 65% of the original wood piece is cut away.
04:45He burns the scraps to dry out his newly carved clogs.
04:52Each master clog maker etches in a design,
04:54sort of like a signature.
05:00This is my grandfather's design.
05:02Yeah, I keep this alive.
05:04It's hard to follow the exact history of wooden clogs
05:06because most rotted away or were used as firewood.
05:10The oldest wooden shoe found in the Netherlands
05:12dates back to the 13th century,
05:15and iterations were found across Europe.
05:17But their popularity in the Netherlands
05:19was the longest-lasting.
05:21Wood was cheap and easy to find,
05:23and it protected workers' feet from sharp objects
05:26or from a stomping cow.
05:27It was also the most popular piece of clothing
05:30in the world.
05:31Clogs were also water-resistant,
05:33important for a shoe used to trudge
05:34across the Netherlands' wet and muddy landscape.
05:38By the 16th century, everyone from farmers and fishermen
05:41to factory workers were wearing them.
05:43But come the early 20th century,
05:45leather became more affordable for the working class,
05:47and machines started replacing local clog makers.
05:51Clogs had a small resurgence during World War II
05:53when leather was rationed.
05:55But soon after, Klompen got a reputation
05:57for being the most popular piece of clothing.
06:01It became known as a shoe of the poor
06:03and fell out of fashion.
06:07And as clog-making dies, so too does this art form.
06:12One of the last clog painters in the country
06:15lives about 70 miles away
06:17in the picturesque fishing town of Hindelopen.
06:20Pieter Boutsma has been painting clogs
06:22for almost four decades.
06:25I wasn't a person to study.
06:29When I was 15, I knew already
06:32I have to work every day with my hands.
06:37He starts with the base coat,
06:38either hand-painted or sprayed on.
06:41It smells a little bit.
06:43Between drying, applying a second coat of paint,
06:46and sanding, it takes Pieter two days
06:48to complete just the base color.
06:50It paints easier.
06:51That's also for the protection.
06:56Then he brushes on local flowers,
06:58like daisies and tulips, and a bird.
07:01And we call them the lucky bird, the garuda.
07:05He adds shadows in gray or brown
07:07and white for highlights.
07:09I'm painting now the typical Hindeloper flowers.
07:13We call that the Hulperschilderwerk,
07:17and it's from Scandinavia.
07:19It's very old.
07:21We paint like it's in the nature,
07:23and in the nature, nothing is perfect.
07:27The flowers and the trees.
07:29So when you do it too big, too small,
07:32that's not a problem.
07:35Pieter learned everything he knows from his father,
07:37who ditched fishing for painting in the 1970s.
07:40My father was not good for fishermen,
07:44but he was always sick on sea.
07:48In 2016, he and his two sisters
07:50took over the family business.
07:52Nowadays, Pieter still makes the designs
07:54his dad taught him.
07:56And I paint every day the same flower, this one,
07:58and again, and again, and again.
08:01And my father said, no, that's not good.
08:04Again.
08:06Wow, again, for two years.
08:08It goes better, easier, like dancing.
08:13Below his workstation,
08:14paint has built up for generations.
08:17And when there is a finish,
08:19if there is too much on the,
08:21then we do it like this.
08:25Because my father paint on this table many, many years.
08:31It takes Pieter about two hours
08:32to paint one pair of clocks
08:34that he then sells for 50 euros.
08:36I cannot live for 25 euro in one hour,
08:41for always, because I have three children,
08:45I have a wife, she needs a lot of money, my wife.
08:49So I have to think other things.
08:53He says customers wouldn't buy his clogs
08:55if they were more expensive.
08:57To boost business, he sells small souvenir klompen
09:00for just a few euros.
09:02These blue ones are actually painted in China
09:04and shipped back to the Netherlands.
09:07He also paints custom orders,
09:09like rocking horses and chairs.
09:12And he runs a gift shop, a skating museum,
09:15and even a restaurant.
09:17So you have to try to do five things at once.
09:24All around him are reminders
09:25of the painters that came before him,
09:27a living museum.
09:29This is one of the painting palettes of my father.
09:34Pieter estimates fewer than 10
09:36professional Hindelopen-style painters
09:38are left in the country.
09:39The quality of the hand-painting style,
09:43I think it's gone.
09:45Just like Pieter, Martin can't make a living
09:47just from his handmade wooden clogs.
09:50He says hardly anyone wears them anymore.
09:53In the countryside where I live, in Luttenberg,
09:57people use it to let the dog out in the evening,
10:01do something in the garden.
10:04So he had to find a way
10:05to keep his family's heritage alive.
10:08In 2007, he started a new kind of mosaic,
10:11replications of famous masterpieces
10:14like Vermeer's Milkmaid from thousands of tiny clogs.
10:18His night watch by Rembrandt took 30,000 shoes
10:22and three years to complete.
10:24My father said as a joke,
10:25maybe we can make the night watch from Rembrandt.
10:28So I said to him, yeah, it's too difficult.
10:31But a week later, I was thinking, yeah, why not?
10:34He started with a pixelated version of the piece
10:37and then hand-painted each mini shoe
10:39one or two different colors
10:41before gluing it into place.
10:44Oil paint, you have to paint two, three times
10:46for the best results.
10:47So I had some help from volunteers
10:50who are living here in the area.
10:53For tourists in the Netherlands,
10:54wooden clogs make great souvenirs,
10:56as much a symbol of the country
10:58as tulips, windmills, and cheese.
11:01Martin charges over $260 for a handmade pair.
11:05At that price point, he sells only five a year.
11:09Most of what's on sale in his shop are machine-made ones
11:12that go for around $30.
11:14You can see this one is made by hand.
11:19And this is polished, sandpapered by machine, yeah.
11:24Which do you prefer?
11:26Of course.
11:27Why? Handmade, huh?
11:29Yeah, you can see the art in it.
11:32The footage you make can make three pairs in one day.
11:34And now we have factories.
11:36Quickest one can make 30 pairs in one hour.
11:40To keep the business going,
11:41he also hosts tour groups with his wife, Marijke,
11:44and holds demonstrations of hand-carving clogs.
11:50With their many hustles,
11:51both Pieter and Martin have managed
11:53to keep their crafts alive.
11:55But most clog artisans like them are close to retirement,
11:58so the future of their art forms is uncertain.
12:02My son is not to take over,
12:04so I think I'm the last wooden showmaker from my family.
12:09That is what it is.
12:12Pieter could be looking at the same fate.
12:14None of his children plan to take on the family business.
12:17I'm now 50 years.
12:1952.
12:21And I think maybe we finished by 65.
12:26And then it's over.
12:29That's the way it goes.
12:33Sport shoe, the Nike Air.
12:35Oh, high heels.
12:37And this one, the Armani.
12:39Yeah, I think this one is a nice one.