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Aug 29 2014 19 Comments

Tokyo’s oldest shoemaker?

Or if not the oldest, then perhaps the most old-fashioned?

Tokyo

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. June says

    8/29/2014 at 10:01 am

    Wow, that’s some place! Looks like it hasn’t changed for decades. Great find!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      8/29/2014 at 10:19 am

      Quite incredible, isn’t it? A real look into the past.

      Reply
  2. Martin says

    8/29/2014 at 10:02 am

    Very cool! It’s hard to find a real shoemaker of any age. At least in the US where half the population are obese and can’t even walk. Now people buy soft disposable shoes instead of quality ones that can be rebuilt and last for many years.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      8/29/2014 at 10:23 am

      Yeah, a rare sight for sure. He usually has a little display outside the shop with his latest creations. Considering they are handmade, they aren’t extortionately priced either.

      The soft disposable shoe thing is a real shock to hear. Is that common?

      Reply
    • Bernadette Marchetti says

      8/30/2014 at 3:47 am

      There’s actually a little an old-fashioned shoemaker who works in a tiny little store near my old apartment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His place is a bit more organized than the chap in the picture, but it has the same atmosphere of having been there for decades. I always wonder how he gets enough business to have kept the shop open all these years. I suppose if you’re the only old-fashioned shoemaker in town, you’ll do alright.

      Reply
      • Lee says

        8/30/2014 at 11:37 am

        I often wonder that about all kinds of small little businesses here. I presume they have some regular, long-term customers, plus they must own the building, so don’t have any rent to pay. Certainly hope that’s the case anyway.

        Reply
  3. Dan says

    8/29/2014 at 2:20 pm

    A man in my neighborhood cut and folded paper boxes … parts of Japan’s magic. Thanks for your documenting eye.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      8/29/2014 at 5:16 pm

      My pleasure!

      Yes, I completely agree. Those little things that are sadly so often missed, but like you say, make Japan the country it is.

      Reply
  4. Hans Ter Horst says

    8/29/2014 at 2:39 pm

    If you clean out that place, you’ll find shoes lost for decades! I recently started paying attention to the many calendars that are in the background of any photo of a Japanese bar, shop or restaurant, seems like a national obsession with calendars 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      8/29/2014 at 5:20 pm

      Yes. I can only imagine how long he has been quietly working there…

      Haha, very, very true. They are indeed everywhere. And invariably of a very similar design too. A design that, from my exploration of abandoned buildings, has changed about as much as his fella’s shop.

      Reply
  5. Matt Talbot says

    8/29/2014 at 9:01 pm

    Great photo Lee (as always, you talented bugger). Your cobbler reminds me of this passage from the Irish writer Flann O’Brien in that he is now half man, half leather from years of proximity to his craft:

    “The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles…when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.”
    ― Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman

    Reply
    • Bernadette Marchetti says

      8/30/2014 at 3:54 am

      That’s an amazing quote and a really great concept! Half man, half leather…he really does look that way! He’s definitely quite well-preserved! I think if one does something long enough, those behaviors seed themselves into every aspect of life. I’ve often that heard sailors and fishermen often stand differently on land because of all the time they spent on a boat at sea. They walk almost as if they are swaying.

      Reply
    • Lee says

      8/30/2014 at 11:42 am

      Thanks you!

      And thanks for the quote too. Lovely. A very interesting way of looking at things. One with a lot of truth too.

      Reply
  6. Renita says

    8/29/2014 at 10:18 pm

    Neat picture of the past in the present. What I find interesting is that it looks like the cobbler has NO shoes on!!!!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      8/30/2014 at 11:44 am

      Yes. For a man who makes shoes, he doesn’t seem awfully keen on wearing them!

      Reply
  7. Linda says

    9/1/2014 at 11:51 pm

    Where is the shop? I’ve seen places like this in Yanaka but never had the nerve to stick my head inside and photograph them.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/2/2014 at 8:44 am

      It’s near Asakusa. 10 mins or so from Sensoji.

      Usually he has his display of shoes in front of the shop, so it’s hard to see in. But this was at the end of the day and he’d moved the shoes inside, allowing me the rare chance of a shot.

      Reply
  8. Faishal says

    9/3/2014 at 12:31 pm

    Awesome picture, Lee
    This very amazed me, I thought this type of work was gone within Tokyo’s modern civilization

    Reply
    • Lee says

      9/3/2014 at 2:51 pm

      Thank you!

      Not the usual image of modern Tokyo, is it? To be honest though a good number of places like this can still be seen. They won’t last forever of course, as their owners are getting on in years, but they’ll still be around for a good while yet.

      Reply

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