I stopped by Teddy Shoes in Central Square, Cambridge the other day to talk to Steven Adelson, the owner and son of Teddy, who opened the store in 1957. They started off with factory close-outs and seconds (thus the "Cancellations" below the name), but then got more specialized in 1993, when he bought $3,000 worth of Capezio dance shoes and the sole right to distribute them in Cambridge.
At the time, it was a big investment. I thought I was going to poop my pants.
Since then, he's done orders of $30,000, so now it's not so much a big deal.
The store is, it's fair to say, packed, and carries many kinds of specialized shoes and outfits, often stuff that is discontinued or otherwise hard to find. Steve said they'd recently gotten orders from Bahrain, France, and Malaysia. Dance shoes are a big part of his business, but not the only one.We carry a lot of unique sections of the market: ladies' heels, cross-dressers, cross-gender.
He said one reason men who cross-dress come to him is that he's got heels in their (large) size.
We talked quality and style. "You can have a shoe that's plastic and looks like leather and feels like it," Steven explained, pulling a pair of men's dress shoes off the shelf. He thinks making the customer happy is more important than what the shoe is made of. Later, a woman came who speaking French, and he explained their refund policy in her language. (He said he picked it up in high school.) After she left he explained (succinctly) his perspective:
If the customer can't bring something back, what good is that?
Steven got busy, and I wandered around. Vicki Morgenstern was trying things on.
It's a dying art, these shoes. It's like a Parisian store.
We talked about how his business has changed. He can sell stuff now that he wouldn't have before.
The store and product mix have become more yuppified...for example, tango shoes for upwards of $200.
The Internet has been bad for Teddy Shoes, partly, Steven said, because people try things on in the store then go home and buy them online. Steven's started his own sites to counteract that, though.
Steven got busy again, and I started talking to Amanda Kupiel, a young woman, originally from Ghana, who works in the store. I asked her for tips for women. "If you want to make jeans and a top dressy, you just put on heels," she explained. We starting talking about heels; Amanda's 5'10" and is afraid to wear ones that are too high. "The highest I'll go is 4 inches," she said. We talked about the dangers of going higher.
Is it intimidating to guys?It's intimidating to me!
Steven shut the store, and I prepared to go. We talked about why there were so many different kinds of shoes in the world. "Everybody has their own whistles they walk to," he said, and I left.
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