About
We restore the shoes. We preserve the story.
A small, independent sneaker restoration studio in Manchester, built on the belief that the pairs people refuse to throw away are worth saving properly.
Meet the founder
It started with pairs nobody wanted.
Sami Turner • Founder and restorer
Sami is from Manchester, and Past Soles began the way most small things do: with limited money, a lot of interest, and a willingness to practise on shoes that had already been given up on.
Away from the bench he keeps goal, and football is the main thing. The restoration grew up alongside it rather than out of it. Two separate obsessions that happen to share the same patience.
Thrifted pairs became the training ground. Each one was photographed before, worked on carefully, and photographed again in the same light. When something did not work, that got recorded too. That habit became the way the business operates.
The camera was there from the start. Filming the process made the work better, because you cannot skip a stage when it is being recorded. It also revealed the more interesting part: the reason someone kept a pair in the first place.
So Past Soles does two things. It restores sneakers as carefully as the material allows, and it keeps a record of what the pair has been through. Small, independent, and honest about its limits, including being new.
The partnership
A maker, and someone minding the business.
Sami runs the bench. His uncle David runs the business side: terms, payments, and anything a customer needs holding to account. He has spent his career building consumer businesses, and he is the reason there is a Manchester blue streak in the family in the first place, having taken Sami’s mum to her first game years before Sami existed.
It matters practically, not just sentimentally. When you send a pair in, there is a named adult responsible for it, and a straightforward route to a person if something goes wrong.
What we stand for
Restore. Record. Remember.
Three commitments that decide how every pair is handled.
Restore
Material-aware cleaning and restoration carried out carefully and honestly.
Record
We document the condition, process, and transformation of every featured pair.
Remember
For selected stories, we capture where the shoes have been and why they matter.
Where we are
Built for Manchester weather.
Rain, tram lines, wet cobbles and long walks home are exactly what ruins good shoes here. Starting local means we understand what we are cleaning off them.
Workshop address shared directly with customers once a restoration is confirmed. Collection and return across Manchester, United Kingdom is arranged directly with you.
The roadmap
Where this is going.
Stated as a plan, not as a promise. Nothing below is presented as already achieved.
- In progress
Practice
Thrifted pairs and the first transformation portfolio.
- Up next
Community
Manchester customers, local athletes, creators and stories.
- Planned
Scale
Collection partners, online booking and UK postal service.
- Planned
Care Range
A focused range of sneaker-care and protection products.
Past Soles currently has no partnerships, endorsements, awards or affiliations. If that changes, it will be stated here explicitly.
Products and tools
Professional products. Material-specific decisions.
Past Soles uses selected specialist products and tools from established sneaker-care companies, combined with soft, medium and sole brushes, suede tools, microfibre cloths and protective treatments. The material decides the method. No single product is suitable for every shoe.
Independent products used where appropriate; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.
In the kit
- Soft, medium and sole brushes
- Suede brushes and erasers
- Microfibre cloths
- Material-specific solutions
- Protective treatments
Care Range
Coming laterA focused range of cleaning, protection, brush and aftercare products. Not available yet.
Book a restoration
Start with one pair.
Send photographs of the shoes you cannot bring yourself to bin. We will tell you honestly whether we can help.
Manchester collection and return, by arrangement. Workshop address shared directly with customers once a restoration is confirmed.