World Championship in Shoe Shining | John Chung Interview

Kirby Allison interviews 2018 World Shoe Shining Champion John Chung. John is an incredibly talented shoe shine professional from Singapore who has followed the Hanger Project for many years. Join us as John shares valuable information about his shoe shine technique including special tips for those watching. Enjoy!
Watch The 2018 World Championship in Shoeshining:
• World Championship in ...
#HangerProject #KirbyAllison
Subscribe to our channel:
www.youtube.co...
Read our Blog:
www.kirbyallis...
Follow us on Social Media:
Facebook - / kirbyallisonoffical
Twitter - / kirbyallison_
Instagram - / kirbyallison
FAQ’s - www.kirbyallis...
_______________________________________________________________
The story of The Hanger Project: www.kirbyallis...

[@leandrolimeres]

He was the best, by far! Congrats

[@cableitoh01]

Wow, this is a great interview. Is the feel of the polish that is most important.

[@Naton]

I feel like polishing my shoes now

[@martincrook1984]

Thank you and a great video and interview

[@julioc4978]

this guy is a shoe shine engineer, excellent delivery.

[@martinnogales2259]

Amazing !!! Love shoes

[@rubenozz]

he is a genius!!!!

[@kirbyallison]

I love how he practiced.

[@Avenlock]

Kirby to be the next shoe shine champion ;) ? Regards from Madrid Kirby, keep up the excellent work!

[@kirbyallison]

Hahaha. Thanks!

[@bg147]

He is quite the professional and seems young.

[@NDakota79]

I would love the Hanger Project to test some of the Boot Black products! Here in Germany they are hyped quite a bit from certain shoe shiners. Especially interesting might be the Boot Black Artist Palette creme, which is a argan oil based, solvent based shoe creme polish with a high propotion of waxes and fine color pigments. Some consider it the best shoe creme in the world, because it can achieve a near mirror shine on it's own and offers very high quality nurture for the leather. It's also three times the cost of Saphir pommadier based on 100ml ... The lotions and cleaners also are considered to be very good.

[@kirbyallison]

Curious how I can get some here to the United States. I'll have to try it!

[@NDakota79]

I don't know who is reselling Boot Black in USA. In Germany the reseller is 'shoeshine-shop.com' and they also have an Ebay shop called 'shoe-shine-shop' which offers international shipping. You could contact the gentleman via '[e-mail]', he may give you more information. Disclaimer: I am not in any business alliance with the shop or the owner.

[@jko8888]

Check out this Shoegazing review of Boot Black products. shoegazing.se/english/2017/06/04/review-boot-black-shoe-care-products/

[@kirbyallison]

isthatabear so, because of this comment, I purchased the entire line of black products. My first impression was the smell, which reveals that they continue to use petroleum based solvents. I still find them inferior to Saphir MDO.

[@jko8888]

+The Hanger Project I only recently purchased a tin of Boot Black out of curiosity. Despite the label (in Japanese) stating that they use "organic solvents", I too noticed the petroleum type smell. I'd be interested to know why there's that contradiction. It's definitely not as good as medaille d'or, but I do believe it's a good product for it's price point. On a recent trip to Japan, I did notice that they have a higher end line available. Perhaps I'll give it a try next time.

[@jeremyemilio9378]

6:10 doesn't water DECREASE the friction instead?

[@ahf5471]

It’s like listening to a super bowl champion interview

[@Lorax_Tribe]

Very interesting to see the different techniques and I've tried the direct fingers on technique, also. One can feel the shoe and even regulate the application of water based on that. Kirby, did I hear right that you can work in a little creme polish to remove some of the hard waxes, instead of a whole stripping with Reno-mat?

[@kirbyallison]

Hi Lorax - yes, that's absolutely correct. You can certainly use a cream polish to remove a little bit of the top wax instead of the Reno'Mat. It's what we recommend for maintenance.

[@iMattCi89]

I've found the fingers method's also easier to tell when you need more wax. I used to keep rubbing with a cloth and thought the cloth still had wax on it when it was really the residual dye stain... Took me a number of tries before I figured that one out... So much time wasted! I took more than 2 hours to get a mirror shine... urgh... But I did have a lot more time back then, because I was a Clerk during National Service and most days were uneventful so polishing became a hobby for a while.

[@trencher7]

Where can you buy Loake shoes in US?

[@iMattCi89]

I didn't know he partnered up with Kevin Seah Bespoke before! I guess I didn't pay attention back then haha :P

[@jeremyemilio9378]

6:11 increase the friction? dont you mean decrease?

[@kirbyallison]

Seems like a contradiction, but the water actually increases friction by wetting the chamois. A dry, soft chamois has less friction than a wet one.

[@antonc108]

Yes indeed sir. Same thing here, only a drop of water and only at the final polishing step, often with burned polish, we learned this in the Singapore army that the final mirror polishing step are done using burned kiwi polish, you take a chunk of it, place it on the kiwi container's cover, lit it up for a minute and snuff the flame, and then you use that, probably the burn got rid of the turpentine and leaves you with more wax, ghetto method of 'mirror gloss', plus a drop of water.

[@andytew]

Do you have John's IG?

[@kirbyallison]

@masonandsmith

[@andytew]

Thanks Kirby

[@XxIzhtarxX]

we got a world champion in shoe shining, funny thing i like my shoes entirely without waxes

[@RonLarhz]

Too expensive. For atas ppl. My dr martens resale value only about 50 but they charge 30. Unless ur shoe is exp 500 above kind, no point find him do.

[@brandonbentley8532]

If the shoe is leather a good condition, wax, and Polish can make 50 dollar shoes look like 500!

[@jeremyemilio9378]

Drinking game,take a shot every time john says "errr, uhhh, andddd"

[@kirbyallison]

I believe English is his second language.

[@regandonohue3899]

Maybe. The Singaporean education system's standard (being an ex-British colony) is in English, meaning that his first language should be English unless he speaks Mandarin (or dialect) at home and/or at school (there are some schools in Singapore that use Mandarin as a first language). Either way, many Singaporeans know how to write English better than they read (and in some instances, neither).

[@iMattCi89]

It's kind of common for those of us in Singapore who are used to speaking Singlish, which has its own grammatical structure and slang from a mixture of local languages. When I went to the US for a while, I had to think through the "proper" English grammatical structure which is a lot easier to do with essays than speaking. To avoid longer, awkward pauses, I used to use a lot of vocal fillers as well.