Shoe Repair

For $75,000 to $125,000, you, too, could get your foot in the door of the instant shoe repair business. Entrepreneur Magazine named shoe repair franchises "Opportunity of the Month" last December, and even the shoe chains that do not now have independently owned franchises are eagerly eyeing the possibility.

After the coffee. Before finding out why I haven't been asked to join Augusta yet. The Skinny: My cats want to become outdoor cats. I made the mistake of letting them wander around while I get my newspaper and now they are convinced there is a whole other world to explore. Don't they know that's the bad world? Tuesday's headlines include a new deal for DreamWorks Animation, NBC lands Michael J. Fox and appreciations of Tony Scott and Phyllis Diller. Daily Dose: There is a lot movement on the public relations front.

Your shoes pinch your toes, and your luggage is ripped. Don't settle for looking like an out-of-towner out of luck. Here are two places that specialize in full-scale shoe, handbag and luggage repairs. Factotum Taken from the Latin terms facere (to do or to make) and totum (the total or whole), Factotum does just that--offering a complete shoes/handbags/luggage repair service. This is the place where major retailers, such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, go for quick fixes.

For a recent episode of the TV series "Modern Family," Raul Ojeda crafted a pair of shoes covered in red sequins for actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. His character, Mitchell, shows off the shoes for a "Wizard of Oz"-themed birthday party he throws for his partner, Cam. A decade ago, Raul Ojeda was working as a shoe shiner. Now the 29-year-old is leaving his own footprint in Hollywood, supplying custom-made shoes to stars such as Steve Carell and Sally Field. Ojeda is the owner of Los Angeles-based Willie's Shoe Service, a shoe repair shop that has been providing footwear to the entertainment industry since 1956, when Willebaldo "Willie" Rivera opened a small business across from Paramount Pictures on Melrose Avenue.

Serene Cicora craved a new black bag last fall, but couldn't come to terms with the $1,000-plus price tags on the styles she liked. So Cicora, an L.A. publicist, took her brown Mulberry Bayswater bag from several seasons ago and spent $120 to have it dyed black. The makeover gave her a key "new" piece -- and moved her $1,800 bag back to the front of the closet.

Lavender is not the color normally associated with shoe repair. Brown, as in dirt brown, or black, as in bootblack, perhaps, but never lavender. Somehow, it's tough to picture the hard-working immigrant shoemaker, surrounded by scraps of leather and rubber soles and ceiling-high stacks of seemingly abandoned shoes, toiling at a lavender machine. But for the new wave of instant shoe repair shops, lavender will do just fine, thanks.

Shoe sales are rising faster than stock prices during this booming economy. But the good times aren't great for the shoe repair business. That's because fewer people bother to get that hole in their sole patched when they have dollars in their pocket and extra pressure to follow fashion trends. Mark Builder, manager of Red Wing Shoe and Repair in Oxnard, which sells work shoes and boots, said his shoe repair business dips when sales of new shoes soar. And these days retail is flying high.

Shoe Cobbler As the morning Wall Street crowd rushed past Minas Shoe Repair, a group of women in dark business suits stepped inside, sorry-looking pumps in hand. The shoe-shine stations along one wall were full. There was a line of tapping toes and shuffling feet a dozen deep, waiting before the black marble counter. Minas Polychronakis It was 9 a.m. Trading at the New York Stock Exchange, a couple blocks away, would start in half an hour.

For a recent episode of the TV series "Modern Family," Raul Ojeda crafted a pair of shoes covered in red sequins for actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. His character, Mitchell, shows off the shoes for a "Wizard of Oz"-themed birthday party he throws for his partner, Cam. A decade ago, Raul Ojeda was working as a shoe shiner. Now the 29-year-old is leaving his own footprint in Hollywood, supplying custom-made shoes to stars such as Steve Carell and Sally Field. Ojeda is the owner of Los Angeles-based Willie's Shoe Service, a shoe repair shop that has been providing footwear to the entertainment industry since 1956, when Willebaldo "Willie" Rivera opened a small business across from Paramount Pictures on Melrose Avenue.

Shem D. Smith, a former Burbank police commissioner who owned and operated a shoe repair shop, has died at a Burbank hospital. He was 84. A resident of Burbank, Smith died Jan. 31 of cancer, said his son, Doug Smith. Born in Warren, Okla., he came to California in 1926 and enrolled at the USC School of Music. In the mid-1930s, he went to work for Zinke's Shoe Repair Co. in Los Angeles, eventually becoming general manager. In 1949, he and partner Charlie Compton opened C & S Shoe Repair Co.

Glass footwear has long been synonymous with a romance between a fairy-godmother-assisted girl and a handsome prince but far too fragile and fantastical to ever exist in real life. Until now. Pasquale Fabrizio, owner of Pasquale Shoe Repair in Los Angeles, has doctored the shoes of celebrities, costume designers and fashion industry insiders for the last 17 years. Combining his expertise in reconstructing designer footwear and his passion for Murano glass pieces, Fabrizio has created a line of glass-adorned shoes ornate enough for a princess and with a royal price tag to match.

Two shoemakers, one with white hair, the other much younger, hammer and sew beneath the torn awning of their shop in a downtown bazaar. "When I first started working here, he wasn't even in this world," says the older one, nodding toward the younger. "You've been here since 1959," says the younger one, squinting and running thread through a silver sewing machine. "You put my grandfather and my father in their graves, and I hope you don't put me in mine." The older one ponders that possibility.

Shoe Cobbler As the morning Wall Street crowd rushed past Minas Shoe Repair, a group of women in dark business suits stepped inside, sorry-looking pumps in hand. The shoe-shine stations along one wall were full. There was a line of tapping toes and shuffling feet a dozen deep, waiting before the black marble counter. Minas Polychronakis It was 9 a.m. Trading at the New York Stock Exchange, a couple blocks away, would start in half an hour.

If you're feeling poor in this lousy economy, one way to stay well-heeled is to visit a shoe-repair shop. Repairing shoes instead of buying new ones is a frugal habit that can save significant money, especially if you own pricey footwear. Cobblers, especially smaller shop owners, are seeing a surge in business recently, said Jim McFarland, a shop owner in Lakeland, Fla., and spokesman for the Shoe Service Institute of America.

Serene Cicora craved a new black bag last fall, but couldn't come to terms with the $1,000-plus price tags on the styles she liked. So Cicora, an L.A. publicist, took her brown Mulberry Bayswater bag from several seasons ago and spent $120 to have it dyed black. The makeover gave her a key "new" piece -- and moved her $1,800 bag back to the front of the closet.

He didn't have to cobble together a show when he decided to turn his shoe repair shop into an art gallery. All Greg Papazian had to do was reach into the shoe box that for 35 years held a one-of-a-kind photographic record of Los Angeles in its glittery rock 'n' roll heyday. He was a high school junior when he turned a visit to an Allman Brothers concert at the Sunset Strip's Whisky a Go Go into a gig of his own -- as club photographer for the legendary hub of Los Angeles' rock scene.

Carmelo Victor Pagano, a retired owner of a shoe repair shop, died Monday at his home in Thousand Oaks. He was 83. He was born April 23, 1917, in Pasa Carrera, Italy, but was raised in Antillo, Sicily. He attended school until he was about 11 years old and then took up the shoe repair trade. When he was 20, he immigrated to the U.S., becoming a laborer and living in Detroit and then Washington, D.C. He soon returned to the shoe repair trade and worked for department stores.

When Thys Boon, a fast-talking Dutchman, first started peddling his instant shoe repair concept in the U.S. in the 1970s, no one wanted to listen. "We were too stubborn," concedes Jack Lynch, vice president of Auto-Soler/Sutton-Landis, the leading American vendor of shoe repair machinery. "Mr. Boon came over and kept talking about this newfangled idea, and nobody wanted to mess with it." The idea was simple enough.

In what can loosely be called "shoe circles," Pasquale Fabrizio is a minor deity. Not only can he take the squeak out of a pair of boots, he can put the squeak back in. He can dye a favorite pair of shoes cream for a wedding day, then return them to a pristine black. When Dorothy's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" needed a touch-up, the Smithsonian Institution sent them to Fabrizio. In an armored car.

IN ALL HIS YEARS AS A LOS ANGELES shoe repair czar, Arturo Azinian never made a house call until three months ago. When the 74-year-old cobbler was asked if he could go to Nicole Kidman's home to tighten her boots, he replied: "Who?" His grandson, Ari Libaridian, had to persuade him to go. "He never leaves the store," says Libaridian. "To him, it's all just a distraction from his work. He has a reputation to uphold."