Paul’s Shoe Shop
The topic I have chosen as the theme for my personal project is the gradual disappearance of small commercial enterprises or stores, which are often in crisis today due to the spread of consumerism, the convenience of shopping online or the proliferation of stores offering cheap goods.
I focused on one such small business in my area, Paul’s Shoe Shop.
This gentleman’s mustache cover a smile that has been with me since I was a child: entering this store meant crossing the threshold into a world of its own, where shoes, handbags, armchairs, belts, and anything else that deserved repair lay on numerous shelves. The atmosphere, thick with the smells of leather and glue, was lightened by the cries of dozens of birds that kept him company from their cages positioned in the back, where few of us were sometimes allowed in, and accessing it represented a kind of prize for us.
Paul reaches the peak of his creativity on St. Ambrose, when the Christmas tree and Nativity scene are traditionally set up in Milan. The storefront is cleared and papier-mâché, figurines, working mills, and streams of running water bring to life a fairy-tale world, a true work of art that has earned him recognition with numerous awards.
His experience, his love for his work, and his notoriety have meant that despite the difficulties (to which was added the pandemic, which forced many small businesses to surrender) Paul continues to raise his portcullis, always ready to solve a problem, to return to us intact something that is precious to us and that we fear, when it breaks, we must abandon.
