Photo: Marcie Parker for the Boston Globe.
Leslie Bateman and Emily Watts are the founders of Coblrshop, a modern shoe repair company in Boston.
I don’t know if you would recall a photo blog post of mine that included a picture of a new-ish cobbler shop in Providence. I was surprised at the time to see that anyone new was eager to get into the shoe-repair business. Wasn’t it supposed to be a dying art?
It turns out that there are enough customers who want to keep their favorite shoes intact that cobbling services are actually increasing.
Marcie Parker reports at the Boston Globe, “Leslie Bateman always loved shoes. Since she was a little girl, she has walked with her eyes cast downward, checking out shoes as their owners stepped along sidewalks. She scoured shoe stores, department stores, and vintage clothes shops for the perfect shoes for school, work, exercise, formal occasions, and casual gatherings.
“And once she found the right shoes, she never wanted to toss them out. Thus began Bateman’s relationship with cobblers, the craftspeople who repair, customize, and sometimes make shoes. Whenever she moved to a new city — Montreal, New York, and now Boston — she searched for cobblers to keep her shoes in good condition, a task that became harder as the number of people practicing the trade dwindled.
“Now Bateman and her partner, Emily Watts, are launching a new service to make it easier for shoe lovers to get their shoes fixed. Their Boston-based startup, called Coblrshop, combines the latest in digital technology with a centuries-old craft, using its website and a mobile app coming next year to diagnose repairs for luxury shoes and handbags, estimate costs, and connect to cobblers.
“ ‘You bring technology in and it adds so much efficiency,’ Watts said. ‘[We’re] using technology to really improve a well-established and long-lasting industry.’
“Coblrshop is among the latest companies to use technology to connect customers with services, joining a host of websites and mobile apps that provide one-stop shopping for auto repair, dry cleaning, home maintenance, and food delivery.
“Bateman and Watts are betting if they make shoe repairs fast, convenient, and competitively priced, more people will fix rather than toss out worn shoes, not only helping to revive the art of shoe repair but also reducing the environmental impact of the footwear industry. …
“Coblrshop contracts with a downtown Boston shoe repair shop, David’s Instant Shoe Repair on Franklin Street, to make repairs. Ultimately, the company plans to find a larger, central location to host several cobblers and train new ones.
“Here’s how the service works: Customers go to the company’s website, where they can choose the type of shoe or handbag that needs repair. From there, they select from a drop down menu the condition of the shoes and the services needed.
“Customers can choose from broad repair categories, such as a clean and shine, wear and scuffing services, or a complete repair. They also have the option to add protective soles to reduce future wear and tear. … After ordering repairs and paying online, customers receive within three to five days a biodegradable and recyclable mailer bag to send their shoes to the company’s cobbler. The process, from estimate to delivery of just-like-new shoes, takes about two weeks.
“Eduard Harutyunyan, who works at David’s Instant Shoe Repair, is Coblrshop’s cobbler. After immigrating to Massachusetts from Armenia in 1997, he learned the craft from a cousin who owned a shoe repair shop in Natick.
“Bateman and Watts said they searched extensively to find a cobbler who they believed would do the highest quality work and be open to modernizing shoe repair. They chose Harutyunyan after speaking to more than 60 cobblers.
“Harutyunyan, 46, said … ‘The issue with the cobblers in general — they don’t get much respect,’ said Harutyunyan. ‘What I like is to be able to change that.’ …
“Few appreciate that as much as Bateman. She recalled becoming particularly attached to a pair of gold Chanel flats that her husband found at a vintage store in Manhattan in 2010 and gave to her for her birthday. She wore the flats every day for years, getting them resoled four times. …
“ ‘You’re not buying something and sending us something new or something via resale,’ Bateman said. ‘You are sending something in that has a story, and we need to take care of that and give you back that magical experience.’ ”
More at the Globe, here.
Photo: John and Suzanne’s Mom.
Providence cobbler shop.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 