Brass Tokyo | World’s Coolest Shoe Repair Shop

Oct 31st, 2011 | Categories: Footwear, Tokyo | by Michael Williams

There’s a shoe repair place called Brass in Tokyo like no other I have ever been to. The guys from Red Wing Japan took me there last time I was in country. It are moments like that —when I was first introduced to Brass in person — that make me realize the Japanese can still do ‘Americana’ better than Americans. I could easily see a place like Brass in Portland or Brooklyn or L.A., but I doubt it would have the customer base to actually survive. Maybe I’m wrong though.

Guys come from all parts of Tokyo to have Brass resole their Goodyear welted shoes. In the shop I saw footwear from Alden, Edward Green, Wesco and of course Red Wing; it wasn’t just fine leather bottom shoes it was a mix of brands and styles. That is something that impressed me about Brass. Normally in New York you go to a repair shop and they can redo a pair of Aldens (and know their stuff), but I’ve seen a lot of boots come out of those shops that just look ridiculous. I take my shoes to Mouded Shoe on 39th Street or to VIP on 55th, but never my boots — those get sent back to the OEM. Red Wing has a pretty amazing shoe repair facility in Minnesota (which I have seen a few different times) and Allen Edmonds also has a great repair service which I have also toured. But if I lived anywhere near Brass I would definitely have to try out their service.

To have your boots resoled there doesn’t come cheap. In some cases it can cost more than $300 a pair. Though, when you consider the price of American made leather footwear in Japan (it’s much more expensive over there because of the high import duty) a few hundred dollars isn’t that crazy. Not that I would suggest you pay that in New York.

One other cool thing about Brass is they sell a good selection of re-crafted footwear from many of the fine brands that they specialize in reconditioning. You can see some of the selection in the above photo. While expensive — and all the way in Tokyo — Brass is like no place I have ever seen. If you are in Japan soon, stop by and check it out.

This post originally appeared on the Red Wing Heritage Journal. More photos and info about re-crafting there.

Re-crafted Red Wing Irish Setters

Note the vintage Cat Paw heel

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Comments: 17

17 Comments to “Brass Tokyo | World’s Coolest Shoe Repair Shop”

1. Miguel Ramalhao
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 5:23 PM: 

   Wow, Anyone who loves a premium pair of shoes love a good repair shop! And this one is the bomb… So cool. I’de love to have a shop like this in my hoje town.

2. Peter
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 5:24 PM: 

   What I can’t understand — and I know Japan is a relatively prosperous country — is where young guys get the money to spend $1,500 on a pair of Wescos, then drop $400 more on esoteric customizing.

   And it’s not just limited to Americana — the Japanese go all out in every trend that I’ve seen. Kinda cool, but the fanatical worship of consumer goods in modern Japanese culture is a little creepy. I take it back, not necessarily creepy, but worth investigating.

3. JRS
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 5:46 PM: 

   Wow – it’s like the fountain of youth for good boots…

4. Bandanna Almanac
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 7:07 PM: 

   On average a single guy in Japan makes a decent salary plus two generous bonuses a year, and with a surplus of single men it’s really no wonder. Plus more often than not they don’t own a car or pay health insurance premiums.

   As for worship of consumer goods I think that’s a worldwide trend. However I’d say Japanese have a better sense of design and taste.

5. CWW
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 7:51 PM: 

   Gotta love any shop that extends a “Cordial Welcome”.

6. Smith & Ratliff
   on Oct 31st, 2011
   @ 8:53 PM: 

   Amazing. Forget shoe repair, I would pay rent there.

7. chuck
   on Nov 1st, 2011
   @ 5:58 AM: 

   The Japanese worship of consumer goods is tied to Shintoism and the belief that every object has a spirit.

8. chad saville
   on Nov 1st, 2011
   @ 8:34 AM: 

   what a beautiful place. i miss the old gentleman by the st. marks church in the east village. his cobbler shop had been there for 40 years and smelled like oil, leather, and wood.

9. SIMON
   on Nov 1st, 2011
   @ 10:34 AM: 

   @peter ” fanatical worship of consumer goods in modern Japanese culture is a little creepy”

   I do have agree with that statement, the japanese do take trends and fads a little bit tooo far! More so than in western cultures thats for sure!

   I hear its perfectly normal to buy a pair of vintage jeans on layaway in tokyo?

   but yeah their love (or complete obsession) for Americana is definitely a little creepy!

10. pkyc0
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 10:57 AM: 

    The japanese ( and other asian cultures) tend to live at home with the their parents until they are married. So while you’re young, everything you earn is disposable

11. Peter
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 11:36 AM: 

    Thanks kyco and Bandanna…I suspected it was some combination of all that.

    By “worship of consumer goods,” I probably should have said “fetishization.” And it’s not just Americana — check out any Japanese pop subculture, whether clothes, cars, animation etc. I think it’s cool on one level, but on another I’m not sure it’s healthy.

    I also wonder how much it’s related to the massive societal changes in Japan since the 19th century. Not many other countries have gone from a feudal empire (that defeated Russia in 1905) to a dictatorship (that gave the US a serious scare), to being the subject of an atomic attack, then being occupied by the enemy (that would be the US), then emerging as an industrial powerhouse, THEN, having your economy collapse into deflation.

12. jiheison
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 2:23 PM: 

    Peter,

    Japan’s peculiar history certainly plays its part.

    Then again, there are more than 125 million Japanese — more than enough to spawn a large number of fetishists of all stripes. Moreover, all of them are crammed in to a country the size of California, which likely contributes to the sense that these eccentrics are ubiquitous. Nonetheless, I submit that the “norm” in Japan is fairly conventional — so much so that it likely contributes to extremism among the outliers.

    I also note a fetish among many Americans for Japanese fetishists.

13. David S.
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 3:41 PM: 

    I can’t tell you how many of your blog posts made me wish I had learned a trade. This one is no exception. Very cool stuff.

14. Alyssa
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 5:10 PM: 

    Great find. I have also noticed the Japanese love for Americana. My family owns a small handmade shoe company in Upstate, NY. We have a Japanese buyer who makes his living selling American made shoes and clothing. Here, in the US we’re working on building a solid customer base. In Japan we’re in high demand. It’s interesting for sure.

15. johnbjones
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 5:49 PM: 

    speaking of brooklyn shoe repair, Bron Yakov on Degraw Street always did right by me.

16. Bandanna Almanac
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 6:38 PM: 

    jiheison, explained it all much better than I would have.

    I live in Japan so I’m always curious about people’s impressions about Japan.

    I really think most misconceptions arise by the lack of direct interaction between Japanese and foreigners. ACL offers his readers a unique insight into Japan with his direct connections through his work. I encourage, if your interested to see more about Japan to read my blog and others.

17. Ken Marizo
    on Nov 1st, 2011
    @ 7:31 PM: 

    Yuya Hasegawa shoe shine club, Japan: I know this video has been circulated quite a bit but it just shows the Japanese appreciation for men’s shoes…….. Plus, listening to the audio in the video kind of relaxes me in a strange kind of way:

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Before Salvatore Siano, known as Sal, retired, last December, he had driven a bus for the DeCamp bus company, of Montclair, New Jersey, for forty-two years. DeCamp has eight or ten routes, but Sal mostly drove the No. 66 and the No. 33, which wind among West Caldwell and Bloomfield and Clifton and Nutley before joining Route 3 and heading for the Lincoln Tunnel. Unlike some bus drivers and former bus drivers, Sal himself is not buslike but slim and quick, with light-gray hair and eyebrows, and a thin, mobile face. In a region where the most efficient way to commute is by train, the bus can be cozier, more personal. When he drove, Sal reconfigured his bus as his living room, lining the dashboard with toy ducks, chatting over his shoulder with passengers, and sometimes keeping snowballs handy to throw at policemen through the open door. He used to caution children, “I am not a role model!” His travel-guide monologues upon arrival at the Port Authority Bus Terminal—“Welcome to sunny Aruba! Don’t forget your sunblock! Cha-cha-cha!”—won him minor fame.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Sal was driving a No. 66 bus that began its run at eight-twenty-five. As he headed for the city on Route 3, he saw the smoke rising from downtown. By the time he reached the tunnel, it had been closed, and Sal had received a call from another driver telling him about the first plane. Wedged in heavy traffic, Sal managed to back the bus onto an entrance ramp, turn around, and retrace his route, dropping the passengers at their stops and returning their tickets or cash fares along the way. Six hundred and seventy-nine New Jerseyans, many from towns that Sal drove through, died in the attacks. Afterward, Sal stopped joking around on the bus. When asked why, he grew sad and dispirited, and said that he was too emotionally caught up in the tragedy. Eventually, he began to joke again.

Among his passengers, Sal had many fans. Once, when he pulled up to the Bellevue Plaza stop, in Upper Montclair—this was years ago, before September 11th—he saw such a crowd that he thought he would have to order another bus. But then everyone yelled, “Surprise!” They had been waiting there to give him a party. He had great affection for his riders, and considered ninety-nine per cent of them to be wonderful people. He never asked anyone’s name or occupation, but he learned a lot about his regulars anyway. He believed that he had a skill for picking out the ones who would succeed and, as an example, cites a boy named John Miller, then a Montclair high-school student, who became a well-known journalist and one of the only Americans to interview Osama bin Laden.

Sal lives by himself in a garden apartment in Clifton. In his retirement, he sometimes works for an auto shop, driving to pick up parts. Afternoons, he goes to Brookdale Park, in Montclair, and spends a couple of hours playing tennis or reading the newspapers. Recently, one of his fan-passengers—who can recall many drab morning walks that were improved by the sight of Sal waving to him from the driver’s seat of a passing No. 66—stopped by the park to say hello. Sal was sitting in his car, taking shelter from the rain. A gloomy, apocalyptic quality of the light, maybe caused by the approaching hurricane, led to thoughts about the upcoming anniversary of September 11th. Sal said, “The other day, I was remembering this one passenger from Upper Montclair who always got on at the Norwood Avenue stop, by the public library. After the attacks, I read in the paper—someone must have told me his name—that this man had passed away. He was such a pleasant human being. A man about my height, wore glasses. I had seen him just the week before. The obituary in the Times said this man volunteered to work in homeless shelters, and sometimes slept in them to experience what they were like.” (Here Sal began to cry.) “When I read that, I knew that my instincts about him had been right. I remember him whenever I go by Norwood and the library.”

The passenger’s name was Howard L. Kestenbaum. Along with the names of nearly three thousand other people who died that day, his is inscribed on a granite wall at the edge of the memorial garden in Eagle Rock Reservation, a county park in nearby West Orange, at the top of a ridge with a clear view of lower Manhattan. “He had a wife and daughter, and they are special people, too,” Sal continued. “I still see them around Montclair on a regular basis. Whenever I do, I embrace them and give them a kiss on the cheek.” ♦

This morning personal genomics company 23andMe launched an initiative designed to shift the balance in favour of participation of one non-European minority both in personal genomics and genetic research. The Roots into the Future project will recruit 10,000 African-Americans by offering volunteers free genetic testing, and full access to the results of their tests. The recruits will also be given an opportunity to participate in the same types of genetic research the company performs on its existing customers: basically, answering survey questions that can then be linked with genetic data to explore potential associations.

This is an important announcement. Personal genomics has, since its inception, been predominantly a game played by white people. An illustration: recent numbers on the ethnic breakdown of 23andMe customers indicate that of the ~81,500 customers with self-reported ancestry in the company’s database a whopping 74.7% are primarily of European descent. African-Americans are particularly poorly represented in the customer base, comprising just 1.2% (compared to 12.6% of the total US population).

That’s not to say that the personal genomics companies haven’t already made efforts to broaden the genetic diversity of their customer base. 23andMe’s founders appeared on Oprah in November 2008, and the company has made a rather determined effort to avoid too much pallid skin on its front page. Here’s a screenshot from the company’s home page in May last year (courtesy of the Wayback Machine):

Still, that 75% European number is a troubling one. A genetic revolution in healthcare is approaching – or at least that is the hope – and those who have received an education in the SNPs and haplotypes of modern genomics will be better-placed to take advantage. Right now, one of the best ways to gain insight into modern genetics is to dig deep into your own DNA; it would be a shame if such opportunities were only taken up by a select few with defective pigmentation genes.

Sadly, as was noted in a recent Nature opinion piece by Carlos Bustamante and colleagues, the dominance of European genomes is found in academic research facilities as well as the storage warehouses of personal genomics companies. A 2009 review found that just 4% of the participants in published genome-wide association studies had non-European ancestry. That’s not only a tragedy from a social perspective – it also represents missed scientific opportunities.

African-American genomics presents both challenges and opportunities. Finding the genetic basis of disease in such admixed populations is more complicated than in relatively genetically homogeneous European cohorts, requiring extra care to avoid false positives due to population structure. The greater genetic diversity found in African genomes can also be poorly captured in some places by standard genotyping arrays. However, there are positives as well: the decreased linkage disequilibrium in African genomes means that analyses in this population can zoom in on the real causal variants more effectively than in European genomes, where the signal of association tends to be spread out over much larger regions.

23andMe is rapidly (and fairly successfully) rebranding itself as primarily a research company rather than a consumer genetics provider. By leveraging its customer database of both genetic and trait information (obtained from online surveys) the company has demonstrated that it can not only robustly replicate known gene-trait associations, but also discover completely novel associations. 23andMe recently published two completely new variants associated with Parkinson’s disease, following on the heels of its 2010 publication of seven new variants associated with non-disease traits.

23andMe’s ability to generate novel genetic associations will rely on continuing to explore niches largely neglected by mainstream academia. That means focusing both on traits considered “frivolous” (such as the ability to smell asparagus in urine), and on targeting populations that have not been well-recruited by other research groups. The company’s new focus on African-Americans will complement existing campaigns targeting specific diseases (such as Parkinson’s and sarcoma).

Does this herald a wave of additional campaigns by 23andMe targeted at other under-represented minorities? Maybe, maybe not – in an email, research director Joanna Mountain told me that the company wanted to focus on African-Americans for the moment, but would “continue to review the possibility of expanding this project to include other communities.” She also confirmed that the company would be using its standard v3 chip for these analyses, rather than including additional content designed to capture African haplotypes more effectively. This may be a mistake, but not an irreversible one – the company can always go back to the DNA samples of customers (at least those who consent for their sample to be stored) for further testing. Finally, she gave a sense of the research priorities here: the company’s “initial focus is on replicating results from previous genome wide association studies conducted in other populations, but we will also look for ways to improve ancestry interpretations of the data.”

Overall this seems like a commendable initiative. It seems likely that – assuming the company achieves its recruitment goals – they will be able to contribute substantially to our understanding of disease genetics in a politically and medically important non-European population.

Excited to announce a project Social People is working on for client 23andMe. Looking forward to marketing this amazing service (I'm a user) to African Americans