In 2025 Chicago shoes will be celebrating 60 years in the field of high-quality leather shoes, but the beginning goes way back. Soon after the war, Nikos, the sixth child of a poor Greek family from Piraeus, decided to emigrate all alone to America to seek his fortune. He went to Chicago because he loved water and sailing. In the mornings he searched for work and at night he slept at the big marina, on an abandoned sailboat named “Chicago”.

A bit later Nikos found a job in a small shoe factory and he met Nikolas, another young Greek immigrant who worked at the marina taking care of the “Chicago” boat whose owner was very rich, but old and sick

The old American boat owner died soon and left in his will the boat to the two Greek boys. Nikolas and Nikos sold the boat, packed their few belongings and returned to Greece to restart their lives. They stayed with Nikos’s family and found work in a small shoe factory close by.