Swedish Shoe-Shining Champion Demonstrates the Advanced Stages of a Shoe Shine

Jack Collins of Gentleman’s Gazette met with Anders Sundström at the Arterton Showroom in London to demonstrate how the 2023 Swedish shoe-shining champion approaches the “advanced stages” of a shoe shine.

Anders is taking us through the advanced stages of a shoe shine. This is where we transform that ordinary polish and shine into something really quite exquisite that you really don’t see anywhere else.

Anders explained his process for building a mirror shine.

When we want to build a spit shine, there are two parts of it—the main parts. There’s the building layers part, where we build layers to create a base for the spit shine, and then you have the finishing stages, where you want to finish it off to create that mirror-like shine. 

The 2025 World Championships of Shoe Shining