ABU DHABI // Sitting among a collection of antiquated-looking machines in a small Hamdan Street store is a grey-haired cobbler mending a pair of shoes.
But despite these machines being more than 20 years old, they still make Aslam Mohammed Ali, 60, one of the most high-tech cobblers in the emirate.
While most hand-sew and mend shoes, at Clogs in downtown Abu Dhabi, they swear by their trusty decades-old German-made machines.
“Making new shoes is easy, but repairing old and shattered ones, of course, requires too much precision to shape them perfectly,” said Mr Ali, from India.
“Machine work is more precise and faster and gives a perfect shape and style in seconds, while traditional cobbling takes much time to fix damaged shoes.”
For example, he said if you want to paste and press a sole, it takes one second only by machine, while traditional cobblers have to keep hammering them for few minutes until it appears to be fixed.
The machine stitches finely in seconds, but traditional cobblers who sew by hand cannot match the quality of the machines in the same amount of time, said Mr Ali, who has two sons and a daughter.
Despite earning Dh1,200 a month, Mr Ali said he still manages to support his family back home and pay for his children’s education.
When Mr Ali arrived 13 years ago in Abu Dhabi, he worked as an office boy but after two years he joined the technical cobbling profession – a field he knew nothing about until taught by his colleagues.
He turned out to be a greatly skilled cobbler, who now perfectly fixes any type of shoe.
“Cobbling is an odd field which many shy away from, but I left my previous job ten years ago and joined this profession, which supported my livelihood.
“I was a newbie in the field, but colleagues trained me to do the job.”
His customers are from Europe, Asia and the UAE. A job at Clogs shoe repair shop is his bread and butter and he loves serving the community.
For the past 10 years, Mr Ali has risen at 7am every day and arrives at the shop by 8.30am.
Up to 20 customers visit the shop each day for repairs, he said.
“Most of the time, we deliver next day. We also wash, dry and adjust the size of the shoe, if required. In this high-class lifestyle of Abu Dhabi, still there are many who believe in recycle and reuse. They have profound love for their old stuff, which they don’t want to discard.”
While talking, he remained busy, gluing on a new rubber heel and removing the old one. He then roughened the joining area and removed any residue of old adhesive.
He then applied an adhesive around the edge of the new heel, then pressed the heel against the shoe. The bond was intact and the edge, he cleaned up.
An industrial steel sewing machine, known as a patcher, was set there, while a heel-shaping finisher was noisily working away in the background.
“A new leather shoe here starts from Dh200. Why spend that much when old favourites can be recycled and reused like new ones?”
“In a time of economic slowdown, repairing and reusing are good money saving options,” Mr Ali said.
“A new leather shoe could cost between Dh200 to Dh1,000. Yet, whether for small or sizeable damages, spending Dh50 for repair brings them back to life,” he said.
“We wash the shoes, if needed, dry them, remove dirt, remove rotten and cracked portions and fix them with new leather with matching polishes.”
anwar@thenational.ae