OAK STREET BOOTMAKERS STORY
When George Vlagos was in middle school, his father, a cobbler, would have him come into his Chicago shop to shine shoes every Saturday. John Vlagos, a Greek immigrant, was hoping to show his son that working with your hands is difficult and that he should get an education and find a different profession.
Well, it backfired.
Vlagos went away to school, studied English, and got a masters degree. But the jobs that made it possible for him to afford a pair of nice shoes ended up driving him back to
the family craft when he realized how difficult it was to find a pair of quality shoes.
"I didn't think I had particularly crazy expectations," says Vlagos. "I wanted a shoe made in America, with full grain leather, and at a reasonable price. I was really surprised that something that existed 20 to 30 years ago was disappearing."
Vlagos's father had also seen the shift at work on the shoes he was repairing, many of them made out of faux leather that couldn't be resoled or with molded rubber soles that weren't repairable.
So Vlagos decided he would design the type of shoe he had been looking for. He found a shoemaker to hand sew his designs in Maine: According to Vlagos, the last part of the country where you can find craftsmen skilled in hand sewing. And he decided to source his leather in Chicago, where he is based, from Horween Leather Company, one of the oldest continuously operating tanneries in the United States. It's expensive, Vlagos says, but worth it. Since his company is small, he can visit Horween and select each hide himself.
On August 31, 2010, Vlagos launched Oak Street Bootmakers, without any marketing—and sold out of every shoe he had within 24 hours. Blogger and friend, James Wilson of Secret Forts, wrote a post about the launch of Oak Street boots, complete with multiple close-up shots of the details of a pair of trail oxfords.
"When I first Googled 'Oak Street Bootmakers,' nothing was online; our own website wouldn't even come up," Vlagos says. "Within 24 hours, websites in different languages were posting about Oak Street."
Vlagos was able to tap into two movements that were key to his success: The rising popularity of fashion blogs and a resurgance in American men's fashion that translated to consumers who are willing to pay more for high-quality goods. His designs are modern twists on classics, like boots, penny loafers, and boat shoes, featured in crisp, sleek photography on Oak Street's site. The vibe is chic, high-end Americana. Prices range from $262 to $500 for a pair.
Vlagos also inspects every pair of shoes and stamps the box as he packages them.
