The shoemaker’s lesson

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, October 9th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: working with leather in Italy.

As the world races forward toward newer and better, some people are thinking about how to keep their work slower and simpler.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy brings us this report.

FEDERICO BADIA: First I stitch this piece, which it will, you know, it's the card holder on this piece…

MARY MUNCY: Master shoe-maker and artisan Federico Badia stands at a tall work table in his shop and storefront in Orvieto, Italy. The smell of leather permeates the sunlit room. There are tools scattered across the table. Today he’s making wallets:

FEDERICO BADIA: And then, now I have to sand the edge, and then I'll stitch them, and then I'll finish the edges again with like a primary wax product, liquid and the burnisher.

The 39-year-old Badia started working with leather in his early 20s while he studied to be a draftsman, but after a few years, he realized he wanted to work with his hands. He tried shoemaking. It came naturally, but to succeed he needed training.

FEDERICO: I reached a point that something was missing in my, you know, knowledge and that's when I discovered that you need a master shoemaker that could teach you and pass down the trade.

He studied in Rome for two years before coming back to Orvieto. He opened his shop 15 years ago.

Today his worn hands move effortlessly in a mesmerizing choreography. Cutting. Punching. Stitching. As a wallet takes shape on the table, he says building a family business is a lot like making anything with leather…

FEDERICO BADIA: …it requires precision, patience, I mean, having good skills…

Across the room, Federico’s wife Hannah stands at a different work table. Their two-year-old son Edmund “helping” her.

HANNAH: You want to come push the buttons?

EDMUND: Yeah.

HANNAH: All right. Now we need to thin, trim down…

Hannah is an American who came to Italy on an exchange program about 20 years ago. She fell in love with Federicoo first, but a love of his work soon followed.

HANNAH: What we do with our bodies affects, I feel like, inevitably, the state of our souls and our hearts and so I think there is something that is valuable and engaging in the act of physical creation, which forces you to both slow down and pay attention.

Hannah is putting together one of their popular items—a small crossbody bag. She has her hands full and not just with the tools and leather.

HANNAH: All right now go sit on your stool…

Between COVID-19 and relocating it’s been a tough few years. Earlier this year Edmund broke his leg and both parents spent a lot of time taking care of him.

Normally, they’d have some finished products waiting to go on the shelf…but they’ve completely run through their stores in the past few months. Hannah is grateful for the flexibility of the work. It’s important to her to be able to take time off to care for her family, but that time away from the shop means fewer products on the shelves.

Earlier today, two people came in looking for items they would normally have in stock. One of them left with something slightly different. The other was leaving the area too quickly for Hannah to custom-make it, and left empty-handed. Hannah feels that pressure to produce, but is at peace knowing that sometimes there are more important priorities than the next project.

HANNAH: People will request things. I have like my list of orders on the board, which I have fallen radically behind on. And so there's sort of this you never really, I mean both thankfully, providentially, and also, I mean, there's never a there's never a point when there is not the next thing that it's asking to be done.

Still, the Badias do look for ways to grow their business. But like learning how to sew, there’s a bit of trial and error.

Earlier this year, Federicoo started building a social media profile for their shop, but it generated too much interest. Since it’s just the two of them, the orders soon overwhelmed them, so they stopped posting.

FEDERICO: We can’t make, you know, thousands of thousands of products every year, right? It's just impossible, and, but that's, you know, that's what it is.

But if there’s the interest, why not upscale production? Some of their processes could be mechanized.

Hannah and Federicoo admit they’d love to find ways to work faster and easier, but not at the expense of quality:

HANNAH: If one were to scale and just have things produced, even if you were teaching or overseeing or etc etc, you are no longer than doing the human size job which first caused you to fall in love with the material. And it seems like that would be a loss.

She says that attention and care imparts a kind of soul into their work. Something mass-produced items can’t replicate, so they’re committed to small runs and limited stock. They say that’s just part of the life of an artisan.

HANNAH: You, you, you live off what you can make. You have two hands, you can make so much in a day and not more. And there's also a beauty in that, because by merit of being an artisan, you are in love with material you work with, inevitably, or you aren't an artisan, and so you're engaged by it, you're enthralled by it, and it gives you great joy and pleasure.

Neither of them want to give up the feeling of leather in their hands.

FEDERICO: …you know these jobs are, you know, are real, we all need real stuff. Like, we need good poets. We need good musicians, good writers, good teachers… good artisans. I know, like, otherwise, we're just gonna become empty jars, and do you want to have that life? I don't.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

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