Is there anyone in the custom sneaker scene that's shifting the culture quite like Dominic Chambrone? Better known as The Shoe Surgeon, Chambrone grew up like so many of us: obsessed with sneakers, but unsure of how to channel the passion into a profitable and meaningful career. He ended up building on the knowledge he picked up in the shoe repair business and eventually blossomed into a self-taught shoemaker who's been responsible for some of the most creative and hyped-up customs in recent memory.
Instead of giving you our version, we'll let Chambrone tell you himself. The 29-year-old was the most recent guest on Jerry Ferrara's Bad 4 Business podcast, where he dropped a ton of knowledge surrounding everything from his early days as a fledgling cobbler, to his wildly successful "Misplaced Checks" collaborations with John Geiger. This is definitely one you won't want to miss. Here are 15 Things We Learned From Jerry Ferrara's Podcast With The Shoe Surgeon.
Is there anyone in the custom sneaker scene that's shifting the culture quite like Dominic Chambrone? Better known as The Shoe Surgeon, Chambrone grew up like so many of us: obsessed with sneakers, but unsure of how to channel the passion into a profitable and meaningful career. He ended up building on the knowledge he picked up in the shoe repair business and eventually blossomed into a self-taught shoemaker who's been responsible for some of the most creative and hyped-up customs in recent memory.
Instead of giving you our version, we'll let Chambrone tell you himself. The 29-year-old was the most recent guest on Jerry Ferrara's Bad 4 Business podcast, where he dropped a ton of knowledge surrounding everything from his early days as a fledgling cobbler, to his wildly successful "Misplaced Checks" collaborations with John Geiger. This is definitely one you won't want to miss. Here are 15 Things We Learned From Jerry Ferrara's Podcast With The Shoe Surgeon.
He wants people to wear his work.
"When I started this customizing thing, it was to be able to create a product where someone could wear it, and they wanted to wear it. Even to this day, I’ve had clients that have bought shoes and have maybe worn them once, or never wear it and put it in a box. To me, I’m a cobbler, I’m a shoemaker, so I want to see my shoe on the streets, so I can get feedback"
He doesn’t like being called a customizer.
"I don’t like ‘customizer,’ even when I was younger I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to be like these guys.' Customizing is like, slightly adding to it. I can completely take a shoe apart and then rebuild it with premium materials and re-last it. Which means it fits like the original shoe, sometimes better because of the quality of materials I use. I can do anything from rebuilding a Nike to build prototypes and samples from scratch."
He added personal touches to the 'Entourage'-inspired Jordans he made for Jerry.
"I took a lot of the original stuff to try to keep it as true as possible. But I did add some things that were special to me, like when I first found out about lasering was when I lived in Charlotte, so I had Charlotte there. I put the Shoe Surgeon logo, I put my birth year. I added some elements to kind of show how I saw the original shoe."
He started customizing because all his friends were wearing the same sneakers.
"All the older dudes, like the basketball players, they saw them and they knew my older brother, and they were, 'Oh, [he’s got] the dopest shoes.' And it made me feel a certain type of way. And then they had the connection to get the Jordans early a couple years later, and I’d go into Foot Locker with them early.
So I’d wear them, and my friends would wear them, and I was just like, 'We look like a bunch of idiots.' So one day, I went home, I airbrushed a pair of all-white Air Force 1 Mids with camouflage and I got an even better reaction… It just progressed [from there], and it still is to this day."
He never thought he would make a living from sneakers.
"I always wanted to be this great person by doing shoes. But I didn’t really think I was going to make a living. I didn’t know what exactly was going to happen, but I just kind of fell into place. And now, I’m still at the hard place where it’s like, how do you balance creating and then getting paid to do it?"
He got depressed when everyone wanted python Jordans.
"So for awhile, I was just taking these orders I didn’t want to take. That took awhile to get over, I think it probably took like three or four years, I was in a weird place. I would take an order, and I would just not want to do it because I was uninspired. Everyone wanted the same thing, I was just depressed. Everyone wanted the python Jordans. But it’s like, if that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be here today."
He prefers to work alone.
"I definitely like to work alone at times, a lot of the times. Sometimes I’ll be working over 20 hours a day, because I love it and I’m super inspired. People call it ‘manic,’ or whatever they want to call it, but this is what I like to do. I like to create."
He didn't want to release the "Misplaced Checks" Air Force 1 customs.
"It was [John Geiger's] idea. And I’m... you know, Nike won’t produce it, because Nike’s Nike. It wasn’t ever supposed to be releases, it was supposed to be made and see what happens. So we made it and the response was crazy."
He says Nike's quality is better than people think.
"The more I’ve dissected so many different brands, the product’s actually well-made. I can’t say anything about if it's made in China in sweatshops or whatever, I can’t speak on that. The product is a good quality product. The leather might not be the best quality, but the end product is [sold at] a good price."
He went to three different cobblers as a kid before one finally taught him.
"I went to a cobbler in my town. I just went in to ask questions, I was like, 'Hey, my name is Dominic, I want to learn more about your machinery.' The first guy, he was from Russia, he was like, 'Fuck you, get out of here, you’re going to take all my business.' I was like eighteen, right? I left pissed.
That same day I left him, I went down the street to another cobbler. I was like, 'I just want to learn more.' He was kind of disinterested. So that was it.
Then the third guy, I asked him, he was cool. I went to him and he was kind of open, he was like, 'This is the machine that does this, I’ll help you find it, I’ll call the people.' He called, and luckily my parents just sold their house at the time so my dad had extra money to invest."
He wants to revitalize the shoe repair industry.
"I truly feel like I can bring it back. I can help bring it back. Me and a few other younger generation cobblers and all these kids that want to be customizers."
He always gets lowball offers, but if people won't pay the price, there's always someone who will.
"I was trying to explain to these kids for the longest time and finally I just stopped. Like, I can’t explain this. The people that are going to understand it will pay the money and respect the craft, because there’s so much time involved that people don’t understand."
He spent 40 hours making Jerry's 'Entourage'-inspired Jordan 1s.
"[It took] over 40 hours. You have to pay for lasering, you have to pay for material. There’s so much that goes into it than the person sees. Especially if they’re comparing it to a Nike, which you just can’t."
He's said no to big name celebrities.
"I’m not even going to say names, but I’ve said 'no' to quite a few big name celebrities. One, I’m not giving out a free gift and, two, I need to be selective, that’s just part of branding. I’m not making a product that everyone can get, obviously, that’s the point. If I wanted everyone to get it, then it would be less expensive, and I would have other people making my product."
He'll repair your customs if anything goes wrong.
"I want to create a product where if something does happen to it, you send it back to me and we get it repaired. That was the whole purpose, one of the reasons why I got into shoe repair and did all this stuff. I want to create this ultimate product where you’re not buying another pair of shoes made in China, and you can keep buying my products, or you don’t need to keep buying my products. You can buy one or two and send it back and fix it"
