The glove experience at Luciano is easy to sum up.
Awful. Terrible.
We took a few steps in the store, where we were not greeted by the only clerk in the entire store. The space is tiny, so he couldn't have missed us. But that's okay... I don't really need to be greeted warmly by a shop owner as soon as I walk into the door. Sure, most of the Floerentine shop keepers had been extremely friendly and inviting as we wandered into various storefronts, but that's okay if Luciano's owner was a bit more reserved. Reserved quickly turned into rude, however. If we had a question about a certain glove or wanted to see a particular glove closer, he was very snippy with responses and generally acted like it was a huge burden to show us any gloves in his shop. After about 3 minutes of complete rudeness, Raja and I headed out the door. It now made perfect sense why this shop was known for producing high-quality leather gloves,was easily discovered through a few minutes of research on the internet, but was completely and uncharacteristically empty inside.
We warily headed down to Francesco's shoe shop, hoping the experience would be vastly different. I was a bit rattled by the whole episode at Luciano, but Raja had been so looking forward to trying to find some custom-made shoes that we forged ahead. Sadly, when we arrived, the shop was closed for their mid-day break. We peered through the windows at all of the shoes in their window display, just to get a general idea of what was available, as we planned to return during their evening opening hours.
But then, a man's head popped up into the window, and he smiled hugely. He must have been in his work studio in the back and seen us walk by and stop to window shop. He made his way to the front door of the store, unlocked it, and greeted us boisterously in a very thick Italian accent. Despite the fact that we couldn't understand much past "Bongiorno!," this cobbler's smile said it all as he eagerly waved us into the store.
So the good news was, we quickly saw a shoe that we both liked for Raja. The bad news was that our knowlege of the Italian language encompasses about 10 words, and Francesco's knowledge of English is every bit as limited. Somehow, between lots of gestures, nods and shakes of the head, and even some sketching on brown paper, Raja and Francesco were able to understand each other well enough to start the process. Both parties were genuinely happy to be patient, drum up what little they could of the other's native language, and try his best to understand and respond. When I hesitantly held up my camera to ask if I could take some photos, Francesco lit up and immediately began showing me all around the store: I was free to explore deep into his cobbler's studio, take pictures of anything I wanted, and he promised to smile big in any people pictures. :)
Here's Francesco himself:
Wandering around his work space was incredible. Everything he makes is done in-house, from scratch. The tools and machines he uses are so different from what you see in a big factory.
There were so many kinds of shoes to pick from! We stuck mainly to the men's dress shoes area, but there were dozens of different sandal templates, plenty of heels, different kinds of driving shoes, comfortable walking shoes... Any kind of shoe you need can be found here.
This is the design Raja modeled his own purchase after.
Once the details of the shoe design were worked out, the measurements started. No fancy machines here, no sir! Just a cobbler with some paper and a pencil to create the adjustments necessary when he discovered that Raja's right foot is slightly wider than his left..
So far, Francesco and Raja have done a pretty good job of navigating through this process despite an almost complete inability to use words effectively due to the language barrier. When this guy below wandered into the shop, Francesco apparently asked him in Italian if he could speak English. And he could! He was happy to help answer all of the questions that each side had for the other side. I thought this was going to be where things became hilarious due to all of the possible misunderstandings that could have occurred, but surprisingly, there was hardly anything lost in translation. The peace of mind for both Francesco and Raja was priceless - Things were on the right track, and both had a good understanding of what was going on.
The nice guy stuck around throughout the rest of the process, just in case he was needed, since he was shopping anyway. That made the last half of the transaction go much more quickly, since he was able to translate things whenever needed. Francesco's head, and mine, swiveled back and forth between Raja and the makeshift translator.
By the end of the process, we were pretty much one big happy family. Francesco truly couldn't have been nicer, and his wife also came in who was bright-eyed and lovely and eager to help. We bid our nice translator, Francesco, and his wife goodbye. If all went as planned, Raja's shoes would arrive to our door in about 3 weeks! SUCH a different experience than we'd had at Luciano, thank Goodness. :)
Within a few weeks, Raja's shoes did, indeed, arrive at our apartment. Since the process was so different due to the language gaps, the sketching on brown paper as opposed to high-tech measuring techniques, etc. we were optimistic but not certain that the shoes would be a perfect fit. But they were! We'd left Francesco's shop in Italy a few weeks back with nothing but faith... Faith in his long-standing strong reputation in this industry, faith in his kindness and willingness to take the time to try to get things right despite less-than-ideal circumstances, and faith in his craft and passion for that craft. We couldn't have been more right.
Francesco da Firenze
62R Via Santo Spirito
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