In an overstuffed workshop in East L.A., Chris Francis reached out a closely tattooed arm and pulled a single shoe field from one of many floor-to-ceiling cabinets lining the partitions.
“Anjelica Huston,” the shoemaker and artist mentioned. “Let’s see what’s in here.”
Eradicating the highest of the field, he revealed two carved wood types generally known as shoe lasts that cobblers use to make their wares. Beneath these had been strips of yellowing shoe patterns and a tracing of the actor’s foot with a be aware written in crazy cursive:
To PasqualeMy blissful toes shall thanks — Anjelica Huston
The Di Fabrizio assortment consists of shoe measurements for stars like Nancy Sinatra, Kim Novak, Joe Pesci and Madeline Kahn, all adorned with inexperienced, white and purple striped ribbon.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
“Cool, huh?” Francis mentioned, gazing reverently on the field’s contents. “Every time I open one it’s amazing. It’s like Christmas all the time.”
Share through Shut additional sharing choices
For the final three years, Francis has been surrounded by a sprawling archive of well-known toes initially amassed by Pasquale Di Fabrizio, the late shoemaker to the celebs. From the early ‘60s to the early 2000s, Di Fabrizio created custom footwear for the rich, famous and notorious out of his humble shoe shop on 3rd Street.
The shoes went to his customers, but his voluminous collection includes shoe lasts, patterns, drawings, correspondences, leather samples and handwritten notes from thousands of clients, all stored in cardboard shoe boxes that the Italian immigrant trimmed with green, white and red striped ribbon.
The names, written in bold Magic Marker on the front of each box are a who’s who of entertainers from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and beyond: Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones, Richard Pryor, Robert De Niro, Sarah Jessica Parker, Bea Arthur, Arsenio Hall, Nancy Sinatra, Ace Frehley. The list goes on and on.
Francis found foot measurements, wooden shoe lasts and a shoe in progress that Pasquale Di Fabrizio made for Ginger Rogers in a box marked with her name.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“Shoe Machine” is one of Chris Francis’ artwork items that he has proven at museums.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
“So many great people stood on these pieces of paper,” Francis mentioned, wanting on the stacks of containers round him. “Roy Orbison. Eva Gabor. Stella Stevens. Lauren Bacall. I could pull these down all day.”
Francis by no means met Di Fabrizio, who died in 2008, however in 2022 he traded two pairs of his sculptural shoe-art items to Di Fabrizio’s buddy and fellow shoemaker Gary Kazanchyan for the whole lot of the Italian shoemaker’s archive. Three years later, Francis remains to be making his manner by way of all of it.
The quantity of fabric is overwhelming, however he’s dedicated to preserving Di Fabrizio’s legacy. Finally, he needs to discover a house the place he can share it with others.
“I never want to be without it, but I’m realistic that it deserves to be appreciated by more than just myself,” he mentioned. “If my life’s work ended up in somebody’s hands, I don’t think I’d want them to just keep it for themselves forever.”
A shoemaker’s journey
Francis isn’t simply cataloging L.A.’s shoemaking historical past, he’s serving to to maintain it alive.
During the last decade and a half he’s made a reputation for himself as a {custom} shoemaker, creating handmade bespoke footwear for rockers like former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford and Steve Jones of the Intercourse Pistols, in addition to sculptural artwork sneakers which can be displayed in museums just like the Craft Modern, the Palm Springs Artwork Museum and SCAD FASH in Atlanta.
Picket shoe lasts hold from the ceiling as Chris Francis works on a shoe for the singer Lita Ford in his storage.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)
In his East L.A. workshop, he eschews trendy know-how, focusing as an alternative on conventional strategies of shoemaking, typically with hand instruments.
“The handmade shoe is alive and well in this shop,” he mentioned, wearing pressed black slacks and tinted sun shades, chunky gold rings gleaming on his fingers. “There’s no computer here, and even the records half the time are vinyls or 78s.”
Making sneakers by hand is time-consuming and costly work — Francis doesn’t promote a pair of sneakers for lower than $1,800 — however for his largely musician clientele, a sturdy, custom-made, snug shoe that additionally boasts over-the-top model is nicely definitely worth the value.
“At my price point, my customers are buying something that’s really a tool,” he mentioned. “It’s part of their look, but it also has to hit 27 guitar pedals, keep all of its crystal, be beautiful, last multiple tours and they have to be able to stand in it all night.”
Francis, who has a sure aging-rocker swagger himself, by no means anticipated to change into a shoemaker.
After going to artwork college and hopping freight trains for a number of years, he moved to Los Angeles in 2002 initially to affix the Service provider Marines. As a substitute he discovered work hanging multi-story graphics and billboards on the aspect of accommodations and high-rises on the Sundown Strip and at casinos in Las Vegas. “That gave me the same thrill of riding a freight train,” he mentioned. “Being on a high-rise building and rappelling down.”
Francis discovered material samples and designs for sneakers that Pasquale Di Fabrizio made for a Broadway manufacturing of the musical “Marilyn: An American Fable.”
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
Shoemaker and artist Chris Francis makes sneakers the standard manner in his workshop in East Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
He found he had a knack for sample making in 2008 when he started creating hand-stitched leather-based jackets to put on to the Hollywood events he had began attending along with his now-fiancee. Sooner or later a stranger approached him and mentioned she knew somebody who would admire a jacket like those he was making. She was a stylist for Arnel Pineda, the lead singer of Journey. Commissions from Mötley Crüe and different rock bands adopted.
A couple of years later he turned curious about making sneakers, however though he knocked on the door of a number of shoe outlets on the town, he couldn’t discover a mentor.
“They didn’t have time, or they’d say, ‘You belong in a rock and roll band, you’re not one of us,’” he mentioned. “But I would say, ‘Just teach me one thing, one trick.’ And everyone had time to teach one trick.”
It was an schooling in way more than shoemaking.
“Almost every shoemaker I met had immigrated to the country,” he mentioned. “So I learned how to make shoes from the Italians, from guys from Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Syria, from everybody. And while doing so, I learned about all these different cultures.”
‘He was the king’
As Francis dove deeper into the historical past of shoemaking in Los Angeles, one title stored developing many times: Pasquale Di Fabrizio.
The late Pasquale Di Fabrizio, a cobbler to the Hollywood elite, photographed in entrance of his assortment of shoe lasts, circa 1982.
(Bret Lundberg / Photographs Press / Getty Photographs)
“I started asking other makers about him, and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we remember him,’” Francis mentioned. “He was the king.”
For greater than 50 years Di Fabrizio was probably the most wanted shoemaker in Los Angeles. He made Liberace’s rhinestone-encrusted footwear and shod Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck for touring productions of Disney on Parade. He was the go-to shoemaker for nation western stars, Vegas showgirls, Hollywood film stars, gospel singers and on line casino house owners. The Rat Pack helped put him on the map.
“My best customer is Dean Martin,” Di Fabrizio instructed The Instances in 1972. “He buys 40 pairs a year.”
Sporting a thick, bristled mustache and oversize glasses, Di Fabrizio had a tricky status. He as soon as kicked a film star out of his store as a result of the star introduced again a pair of patent leather-based sneakers that he claimed had been faulty. Di Fabrizio accused him of lacking the urinal and peeing on them on the Oscars.
“Never come back here again,” he mentioned in his thick Italian accent.
The shoemaker often made home calls, however his prospects largely got here to him. In his workshop on third Avenue close to Crescent Heights, he would hint their naked toes on a chunk of paper and measure the circumference of every of their toes on the ball, across the arch, the heel and the ankle. Then he would customise a pre-carved wood final from Italy, including skinny items of leather-based 1 millimeter at a time to extra completely mimic the distinctive form of the shopper’s foot.
The dimensions and shapes of the lasts assorted wildly. He as soon as instructed a reporter that it took “half a cow” to make sneakers for Wilt Chamberlain, who wore a measurement 15. In his archives, Francis discovered a petite excessive heel shoe final roughly the size of his hand.
Francis holds a foot tracing and shoe lasts made for Robert De Niro by Pasquale Di Fabrizio.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Instances)
“Di Fabrizio did lots of shoes for little people,” Francis mentioned. “He really offered an important service for that community. They could have formal footwear rather than having only the option of wearing kids shoes.”
The identical lasts may very well be used again and again to make a number of pairs of sneakers, so long as the heel top was the identical. Every final went in its personal field embellished with a ribbon within the colours of the Italian flag.
“It’s so simple, but he claims his territory with that ribbon,” Francis mentioned. “He cared enough to take one extra step. It’s what really made that collection iconic.”
A legacy preserved
Francis first encountered Di Fabrizio’s archives in 2010 when Kazanchyan provided him a job at Andre #1 Customized Made Sneakers on Sundown Boulevard. Kazanchyan inherited the store from his uncle, Andre Kazanchyan, who as soon as labored with Di Fabrizio and have become his good buddy.
Gary Kazanchyan and Di Fabrizio had been shut as nicely. When Di Fabrizio retired within the early 2000s, Kazanchyan employed all the guys who labored at his store. Di Fabrizio was at Kazanchyan’s wedding ceremony and when the older shoemaker was in a nursing dwelling on the finish of his life, Kazanchyan visited him on daily basis.
For years Kazanchyan saved as lots of the ribbon-trimmed containers as he might slot in his Hollywood store, however simply earlier than COVID he moved his store to his storage in Burbank and transferred Di Fabrizio’s archives to his yard. “At one point, my whole backyard was this mountain of shoe lasts,” he mentioned.
Chris Francis, left, and Gary Kazanchyan at Palermo’s Italian Restaurant in Los Feliz.
(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Instances)
Kazanchyan began a renovation on his home in 2022 and will now not retailer Di Fabrizio’s archive in his yard. He’d offered a number of the most well-known shoe lasts at public sale — a bundle of Di Fabrizio’s shoe lasts for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. went for $4,375 in 2013 — however he nonetheless had a number of tons of fabric stacked on pallets and lined in tarps. He remembered that Francis cherished the gathering, so he known as him and requested if he needed it. Francis did.
Francis didn’t have the cash to buy the gathering in money, however he provided Kazanchyan two artwork items that he’d exhibited and Kazanchyan accepted. The primary carload of containers Francis took to his studio included lasts for Wayne Newton, Paula Abdul, Ginger Rogers, Burt Reynolds and Sylvester Stallone.
“My excitement was on fire,” he mentioned.
Francis spent a couple of weeks sorting by way of the archive and discarding lasts and shoe containers that had been too lined in mildew or deteriorated to be value maintaining. Simply earlier than a rainstorm threatened the remainder of the gathering, he introduced 1000’s of shoe lasts to his studio however even now regrets that he was unable to reserve it all.
“I tried to grab the big names, but there was so much I couldn’t keep,” he mentioned. “It was heartbreaking.”
The containers maintain tales — and life classes
Dwelling and dealing among the many Di Fabrizio assortment has taught Francis much more than simply the artwork of constructing sneakers.
“I’m constantly seeing the obituary of a celebrity who has passed and I go to the workshop and there’s their box,” he mentioned. “It really lets you know that life is for the living. It’s up to you to be responsible and live your life when you’re alive. Be yourself, teach others, leave something behind.”
Hanging onto the gathering has not been simple — however Francis believes he was chosen from past to look after Di Fabrizio’s archive and to share it with others responsibly.
He’s nonetheless undecided what that may appear to be, however he’s decided to attempt.
And within the meantime, he’s additionally decided to maintain the standard artwork of shoemaking alive in Los Angeles.
In case you go searching his workshop, you’ll spot a number of containers adorned with purple, white and blue striped ribbon.
Francis is making these containers his personal.
Working with hand instruments, Chris Francis makes a {custom} pair of sneakers for musician Lita Ford.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Instances)
