Italian bespoke shoes by Antonio Meccariello

My family has a small history of shoemaking. In the 1950’s the small towns near Benevento were very involved in the shoemaking industy. Many households were involved in various stages of shoemaking. It was an outworker based system where various parts of shoes were made by different groups of people, and mostly in their homes. Unfortunately in the past 10 years, most of these small workshops have closed due to consolidation of the shoe industry, and the main industrial shoemaking area in Italy is now concentrated in the Marche region.