VASILIS’ SECRETS
THE CREATION
OF
THE PHANTOM FOOT
AND
THE FANTASY CLIENT
LED TO THE CREATION OF A MODERN-DAY GREEK TRAGEDY – THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF WHICH -THE INIQUITOUS EVILS AND ANCIENT FATES OF WAR, DEATH, DESTRUCTION, RUIN, SUSPICION, JEALOUSY, OBSESSION AND ANNIHILATION CONSPIRED TO DESTROY THE DREAMS OF OUR HERO, “VASILIS STAMATAKIS, PHANTOM CORDWAINER OF CRETE”
Imagine that you have trained and prepared for over a decade for a very specific career; and then, suddenly by no fault of your own the society, in which you lived changes so drastically that not only is your craft obsolete, but it is also considered to be ‘undesirable’ and worthy of suspicion. A sort of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES – not unlike the purges that were carried on by the red guard in China years later when zealous young Chinese marched from house to house and business to business, rooting out every sort of item that proclaimed what they felt to be unnecessary beauty or luxury.
This was the experience of master cordwainer Vasilis Stamatakis immediately following the second world war, and the Civil War that followed it in Greece.
Suddenly there was a new social order, many people had suffered desperately throughout the conflicts, there was a severe economic depression, and citizens were encouraged by the government and the church to lead extremely simple lives.
At the end of Greece’s Civil War, in early 1949, WWII Veteran Vasilis Stamatakis was ready to set up his first shop in Heraklion, Crete that would specialize in custom-made Shoes. He was able to rent a small storeroom in a somewhat out-of-the-way
neighborhood and set up his work room and a small showroom. His sister Dora agreed to serve as his receptionist.
In his tiny shop window Vasilis placed a few pairs of shoes that he had made during his last few years as an apprentice in Athens’ most prestigious ladies’ haberdashery.
No one visited his shop. Not one person.
Very quickly Vasilis had to face a horrendous reality — In Crete’s postwar world, no one wanted custom made shoes, or any item at all that proclaimed luxury or style.
Faced with this grim reality, most people who had devoted over half of their life to obtaining training and practice to produce a specific commodity would most probably have called it quits.
But no. Vasilis was made of sterner stuff! He had been raised in the mountains of Southern Crete where people were resourceful. Raised on a farm, he had watched his father and brother tirelessly fight against unreliable weather and treacherous terrain to produce the crops that would guarantee the family’s existence.
To survive, Vasilis began to formulate an incredibly pragmatic plan. If he could not profit from the sale of his own handmade shoes, would it be possible for him to profit through the sale of machine-made shoes that he could buy in the wholesale markets of Athens and Thessaloniki?
He reckoned that his complete knowledge of exactly how shoes were made, and which leathers and materials were the most practical would enable him to buy knowledgeably and advantageously from wholesale shoe manufacturers.
He was aware of the charmless but sturdy footwear that the women of Heraklion demanded and vowed that he would supply that need.
Keeping in mind that he would need a shop in the very center of town he began to walk and survey the commercial properties that were on offer. After a few weeks viewing possibilities, he came across the perfect building. It’s stood on the main business street, in the center of the downtown shopping district — less than a half block away from Heraklion’s bustling market center. It was one of the old Venetian buildings – narrow and deep, with three floors.
At that time, it was a buyer’s market — money was scarce, and many merchants had closed shop. Vasilis gathered his courage and boarded a bus for his village – Paraskevi – where his father and brother worked on the family farm.
In isolated rural Crete farm life was largely unchanged. The family’s vineyards and olive groves were producing as they had for centuries.
Vasilis owed his career to his older brother who had made his second apprenticeship in Heraklion possible. His brother knew and understood Vasilis’s work ethic and persuaded their father to finance the purchase of the building and to underwrite the expense of stocking his shop, and thus The Elite Shoe Shop opened its doors in the fall of 1949.
More quickly than he had imagined his new venture thrived. Vasili and Dora had intelligently designed the sales floor of the shop and storage room. They avoided exotic decor, and selected serviceable chairs and neutral light-colored walls, and installed a large front display window to let in the light to create a welcoming atmosphere.
Dora’s abilities as a manager and bookkeeper were extraordinary. From a desk by the entrance, she served as receptionist and greeted customers as they arrived. She had also been able to select extremely courteous and deferential saleswomen who catered patiently to the customer’s wishes.
Within a matter of months, Vasilis found that the little shop ran efficiently without him, and he began to work on the second floor of the building where he unpacked many tools of his trade and designed a beautiful and efficient workroom.
The art of the cordwainer requires a great many implements, and over his nearly 20 years of apprenticeships Vasilis had acquired the full battery of tools and skills vital for the creation of perfect custom-made shoes.
BUT HE HAD NO CLIENTS, nor did he have any hope of developing a client base.
It was now up to him to conjure up his new clients – – ‘PHANTOM CLIENTS’.
Of course, he still had total recall of the hundreds of stylish women for whom he had created his custom-made masterpieces. These women would provide the core for his future design standards because they had been discerning women who wanted the finest in craftsmanship and materials. And, of course, they wanted something that would be “uniquely their own”.
The cinema in town was still active, the kiosks still provided a few outdated fashion magazines from Europe, and the daily newspapers and newsreels were full of pictures of celebrities, heads of state and artists from all over the world.
Drawing from these images, Vasilis assembled for himself his new client base that existed only in his perception of what would be desired by the film stars, entertainers, celebrities, royalty, and the notorious who appeared to him via The Media.
For the next 20 years, he would work in secret producing the footwear that he intuited would delight his clients.
Thus, Vasili was the first shoe designer who was completely influenced by what we now call ‘Pop Culture’.
In that past year Vasili had become acutely aware of the ultra conservative values of his fellow businessmen. Nobody remembered him from the time that he had served his four-year apprenticeship at Heraklion’s now vanished ‘Toilette’ or Ladie’s Haberdashery — those times were gone forever.
The women who had once been his clients had long ago moved on to either Athens or more likely to other World Capitols.
He was also aware that both the church and the government were very much against any ‘frivolous’ display of fashion. Both entities condemned women who chose to wear brightly colored or fashionable clothing.
The prejudices that controlled both church and state have often been very clearly outlined in the work of the Cretan genius writer and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis. When this great literary figure died the church and government conspired to try to keep any public memorial being built to him.
In fact, when his first memorial was erected in the center of town citizens who were stirred up, particularly by the church, were encouraged to dump both garbage and excrement at the memorial site. It had to be hosed down daily.
There is an interesting insight here, though, because of Kazantzakis’ great renown tourism increased greatly as pilgrims from all over the world came to visit his memorial.
And, oh how the tourist dollars rolled in!
In fact, the crowds became so large that it became necessary to relocate the memorial to a large area where parking was available to accommodate all who came to show their respects; and a decade or so later Heraklion’s new international airport was named – –THE NIKOS KAZANTAKIS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT!
Keeping the prejudices of those around him well in mind, Vasilis told Dora that she was to keep all employees confined to the ground floor of the shop, only, and that no mention was ever to be made of the fact that he had set up a workshop on the second floor.
Faithful as always, Dora saw to it that absolutely no mention of her brother’s activities was made not only to the employees, but to anyone.
And so began the trajectory of Vasilis’ fateful and tragically doomed secret career that left behind a dramatic and poignant tale traversing eight decades— morphing from an age of elegance and peace – through war, total destruction and loss periods of depression and repression – and a gradually to a rebirth four Crete as businesses again began to prosper as the tourism business flourished, and the island underwent tremendous changes and once again there emerged joy, energy and fashionable pursuits.
The darkness at the end was again no fault of Vasilis’ – just as he prepared to open the doors to his newly constructed shoe museum, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died instantly.
Later, the terrible betrayal of his family was related to me from various sources.
As the terrible tale spun out, one could almost imagine a contemporary NIKOS KAZANTAKIS work of fiction or a cruel ancient Greek tragedy.
By all accounts Vasilis’ wife and son – brainwashed by the church – had been persuaded to believe that the exquisite shoes that had have been created by their husband and father were works of the devil.
Mother and son were immediately able to sell Vasilis’ very well placed building for an astonishingly high sum; and when they were told, they would have only a few weeks to clear the building, I was told that they instructed the new owner – who was demolishing the building – that the building’s contents – comprising the totality of Vasilis Stamatakis’ life work, which was awaiting transport to the museum – BE DESTROYED WITH THE BUILDING.
This saga contains so very many contrasting elements, -the beauty of life for a creative young boy in rural Crete as he became aware of his artistic dreams, visions of a Greece unscarred by coming wars, the destruction of an entire nation’s way of life that led to ruin for many and deep unhappiness for everyone. The audacity of changing courses in the midst of ruin and inventing a new way of life, the empowering of a capable woman in business at a time when women had very little status within the workplace, the pleasure of planning a Museum to showcase your own lifetime oeuvre, the tragedy of the untimely death of the artist on the eve of that museum’s opening, and perhaps cruelest of all was the treachery of those closest to him.
But I think that nothing could ever have of replaced for Vasilis the intense lifetime pleasure he found in the creation of each and every uniquely beautiful pair of shoes he fashioned throughout his entire lifetime.
I am the collector who was fortunate enough to buy 36 pairs of shoes from Vasilis, which I transported to my home in Pennsylvania with the hope of utilizing them not only for my delight in their beauty, but even more-so to generate admiration and respect for them by generating articles in fashion magazines, fostering newspaper stories, and by finally securing permanent exhibit for them in some prominent shoe or fashion museum guaranteeing that the name of their designer – Vasilis Stamatakis – will be enshrined forever in the pantheon of great shoe designers.
After 30 years of curating his great works of art, I have come to the realization that although they comprise a tremendous treasure that should be seen by every person who loves exquisite cord waining, they also represent an even more powerful legacy, and that is the incredible story of everything that happened to produce these timeless treasures.
I feel the highest and best purpose will be to produce a documentary based on my book – VASILIS’ SECRETS – that I feel would be extremely interesting for serialization on a platform such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. I feel that such a film would prove to be a popular and lucrative venture. This film will also create interest in a traveling shoe display throughout the world’s best fashion museums.
Although such traveling roadshows are very expensive to construct, these exhibitions can produce a great deal of income, and of course, those who design them have the opportunity to create a great variety of merch that is referential to the display – – T-shirts, postcards, posters, small reproductions of the shoes, a calendar of the shoes and even possibly licensed reproductions of Margo McCafferty Rudd’s Interpretation of some of the iconic phantom clients (shown below) who no doubt were icons of the types that inspired Vasilis — the opportunities are endless….
