Downtown Waco shoemaker keeps vanishing art alive
Downtown Waco shoemaker keeps vanishing art alive In a downtown Waco skyscraper built in 1915, a Waco woman practices a craft that’s even older and becoming rarer: shoemaking. Since November, Zoe Rios has crafted shoes by hand in her Anthem Studios workshop in downtown Waco’s Praetorian Building, applying skills acquired over years of study and apprenticing. But not just any shoes. Canotte Cleveland Cavaliers In her seven years as a Central Texas shoemaker, Rios specializes in women’s bespoke shoes, built for individual customers and fitted exactly to a client’s foot.
Many clients come to her after painful years in shoes that don’t fit well, rub bunions, cramp toes, fail to support pressure points or have other shortcomings. Kenley Jansen Jersey “Most of my customers have some reason why (mass market) shoes are not comfortable for them,” she said. The Windsor, England, native is sympathetic. Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 She rarely found store shoes that worked either, a problem compounded in her hobby of running. “I have slim feet and my shoes never fit me properly,” she said.
The 40 something shoemaker she demurs at giving her specific age is a certified pedorthist, qualified to build special shoes, foot supports and the like. Measurements of a customer’s foot start with an imprint of the sole, then move to the appropriate last, a hard plastic form on which leather pieces are molded and shaped into a shoe. Scarpe Kobe 11 Rios has lasts in women’s shoe sizes 5 to 14 with shapes accommodating various widths, arch heights, heel styles and heights. She adds leather strips and pieces to a last to build an exact fit for a foot, shaving leather thin to ease pressure on a bunion or ball of a foot, adding more in other places for a snug fit. Leather is her material of choice, best suited to ease into a comfortable fit over time. Tubes under a worktable holster a wide range of leathers calfskin, lizard, water buffalo, kangaroo, pigskin, alligator and more in familiar browns and tans as well as colored leathers. Moving from shoe fitting to design taps on Rios’ past as a young woman working in London’s fashion world, before she left for the United States in her 20s. “I hated it,” she said. “I liked the technical side of (fashion). Much of the industry was focused on what was fun and frivolous, but it didn’t seem important to me.” Shoes were the hardest thing to make in apparel, she recalled, and it’s still not easy to mesh use and fit with look and style. “Making a shoe look as beautiful as the shoe in the store that’s the really, really hard part,” she said. Sac Kanken “Fashion is the best kind of challenge. You want something to go with one’s wardrobe, that won’t go in and out of fashion and is fashionable in a long term sense.” The finished product isn’t cheap or quickly made her bespoke shoes start at $400 a pair and can take three or more weeks to produce.
She also doesn’t do shoe repairs. Rios decided to pick up shoemaking after she and her husband, Baylor University administrator Christopher Rios, moved their family to the Waco area about eight years ago. She looked for someone with whom she could apprentice and while she found no willing shoemakers in the area, Rios got something close leatherworking at Uptmor Saddlery and watching veteran bootmaker Greg Carmack, owner of Carmack’s Custom Cowboy Boots and Shoes, as he crafted his handmade boots. Rios worked out of her home until moving into the Anthem Studio space in late October. Her shop tables are dotted with some of the task specific tools of a shoemaker: two vintage steel sewing machines for stitching leather; a cast iron cutting machine for trimming shoe soles and uppers; a dozen or so lasts; a hammer with a thick head rounded by decades of wear; two small anvils; and all sorts of clippers, pliers, glue brushes and knives. nike air presto bambini “Places like Anthem Studios are so important to me,” she said, noting that not only does it offer a well lit space and room for craft, but a place to meet customers and fellow artists in adjoining studios. Though most of her business is individuals rather than browsing customers, Rios finds Anthem Studios offers an opportunity to reach other buyers.
She sometimes creates several pairs of leather sandals for the studios’ monthly First Friday open houses “First Friday Flip Flops” and she also is making leather handbags as a sideline to supplement her shoecraft. Rios also has offered small classes in leatherworking and shoemaking in hopes that creating fellow artisans in leather could defray material costs as well as pass on skills for a once common craft that’s slowly disappearing. Rios’ specialized clientele doesn’t add up to a lot of traffic for her Anthem Studios shop, but ZR Shoes and Rios are the sort of unique place and person that can stimulate the creative atmosphere of downtown, said Chris McGowan, director of urban development for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.