News

One of the things I love about Italy is that it still makes things. Get away from the tourist-plugged downtown centres and you will find small businesses bashing out — or lovingly crafting — clothing, furniture, toys, fancy writing papers, leather goods, windows and doors, mattresses, ceramics, ironworks and made-to-measure racing bikes. Micro enterprises, as businesses with ten employees or less are called, make up almost half of the Italian work force. That's by far the highest in the European Union. The figure in Germany is 20 per cent.
 
The Italians know their small businesses are threatened by high costs and the flood of cheap imports from Asia and, increasingly, North Africa. That's why the smart ones are moving up-market. They are making small quantities of beautiful objects and selling them to the growing ranks of the rich.
 
A case in point is my current fave small businessman, Antonio Aglietti, who works out a combination store and workshop in Rome's lively Testaccio neighbourhood, just outside the ancient Aurelian walls. Antonio, 46, is a "calzolaio" -- a shoe maker. Not just any shoe maker, though. In effect, he runs a global business from a shop with a mere four employees and maybe 500-square-feet of real estate. His products are custom-fitted, hand-crafted shoes that are sold to the wealthy and pampered around the world.
 
Or to people like me, who really can't afford such shoes but can't find regular ones to fit, at least comfortably (I am 6-foot-5 and my left foot is so much smaller than my right that it could have come from a different person).
 
I stumbled across Antonio's store in early May, when I was in desperate need of shoes I could wear with a suit. He is an intense, short, muscular man who looks like he spent his youth on the wrestling mat. His father was a shoe repair man. Antonio learned shoe basics from the old man and went to design school with the idea of turning an old craft into an art form. 
 
I had no intention to pay his prices but was so bowled over by his passion and knowledge that I agreed to put in an order. He spent about half an hour measuring my feet with a tape, noting that one arch was significantly lower than the other, that this foot was wider here, narrower there, that the instep on the left was higher (or lower — I can't remember) than on the right.
 
Then he made a tracing of each foot and explained he would use his encyclopedic knowledge of my pedal anatomy to make a plastic "forma" — mould — which the leather benders in the back room would use to fashion my shoes. The moulds alone cost €250 — about $350. Antonio, noting my shock, explained this was a one-off cost. He would keep the moulds forever. No matter where I lived, I could simply phone in an order and the new shoes would arrive in the mail. In fact, most of his clients live outside of Italy. Many are Japanese, Americans and Canadians. His is a lonely job; he says he has met each one only once or twice.
 
"When will they be ready? I asked. "A few weeks," he said. "I'll call you."
 
This being Italy, where time is irrelevant, I heard nothing for a month. Another month passed. I dropped into the store at least twice and was told to be patient.
 
In late July, he summoned me for a fitting. The right shoe was largely finished. I put it on. It was a bit tight. He sensed my disappointment and got an angry look on his face. At first, I thought he was mad at me for being a finicky customer. In truth, he was mad at himself. He grabbed a sharp, short knife and sliced up his creation in front of me.
 
"We start again," he said. That's when I realized Antonio was a perfectionist.  
 
My shoes finally came yesterday, four months after my first visit. They are elegant black leather brogues that, viewed from a metre or two away, don't look like they cost as  much as the used cars I bought in my youth. But they fit so perfectly I was barely aware I was wearing shoes. Antonio's signature was burned into the insoles. My initials were on the bottom, just ahead of the heel. I was delighted.
 
I have every confidence Antonio will make a good living as a shoe maker. Will he get wealthy? Forget it. He makes about 20 pairs of shoes a week. By my estimation, his annual gross sales are €400,000. He resists boosting output because he insists on total satisfaction from his customers. In more than 20 years, only one pair of shoes were rejected, he says. If Italy wants to stay afloat in world of cheapo imports, it will need more businesses like Antonio's.