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About Chicago Shoes
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.
On Sundays they walked along the coastal marinas and made plans for their future. Soon they found a small building nearby, purchased the required machinery with the money from the sale of the boat, and in September 1965 they started a small production of hand-made shoes specially made for sailors under the name of “Chicago Shoes”.
The designs were simple, like the classic boat-shoes, but the materials and construction were excellent. Not a single pair of shoes got in the box unless it was perfect. Leathers and raw materials were chosen by Nikolas who had become an expert, while the production was supervised by Nikos.
The Greek consumers loved the Chicago shoes, because they were comfortable, good looking and reliable. Moreover, the older they got, the more appealing they became as is always the case with authentic things.
Chicago Shoes company grew bigger and in March 1972 has moved to a big building in the south of Athens, with brand-new machinery and modern production methods, but with the same devotion and care for the products, the people and particularly the sailors.
Nowadays, Nikolas and Nikos are no longer alive, the small American sailboat that created their future is also gone, but Chicago Shoes continue to be made with the same respect and care for those who love life, sea, sailing and beautiful reliable shoes.
