How I Got There: MARIKINA
Walking Around the Shoe Capital
A Designer Tour of Marikina
The best way to understand a city is to walk in her streets. While it may not be a leisurely walk around Metro Manila, there’s a reason why many foreign tourists and a growing number of locals are joining the so-called “walking tours” of the city. The crazy jeepneys and the humidity are all made worth it by the wildly interesting stories behind Metro Manila’s famous landmarks and secret corners.
The Designer Tour of Marikina was my most memorable walking tour in the country to date, probably because I caught its final run. Marikina, known as the Shoe Capital of the Philippines, is home to some 200,000 shoemakers. It also proudly holds the world’s record for the biggest shoe and has roads named Sandal Street and Slipper Street. Ok, truth to tell, it was the mention
of all these shoes that finally reeled me in the tour.
Our guide, rising young shoe designer Brian Tenorio, was a week shy from flying to New York for further study. I could not think of a better guide. Brian is not only shoe designer with operations based in the Shoe Capital of the Philippines- he also grew up there. Brian’s factory is a few blocks away from his home and the many shoe outlets that Marikina is famous for. This would be like Monet giving a tour of Giverny or of Jimmy Choo showing off Penang.
The tour started in Brian’s factory. Brian flitted in, journalist from a local station in tow. She wanted an interview with him in a cleaner setting, with all his designs gleaming in a row. The designer is apologetic but firm. There simply was no time for the studio-like set up and they had asked him for an interview at his factory. A shoe factory can’t be any more real than the sharp smell of varnish and the disarray. This was shoemaking and shoe design at its most authentic.
Brian then introduces us to his shoe makers. There are only about six in the room, each responsible for a step or two of the whole shoemaking process. They are veterans in the industry and it is apparent in their work. Like the elves that magically help the cobbler in the fairytale, the Marikina shoemakers are mostly work in the background. Occasionally, the world gets a glimpse of their skill and industry.
Two of them, Brian tells us, have been featured on CNN. Thrice.
We were then brought to the Marikina Shoe Museum, which holds a large collection of vintage Dior, Ferragamo, Givenchy, and Chanel. Statues depicting a scene from a shoemaker’s workshop is cordoned in a corner but this is mostly ignored by visitors for the museum’s main attraction- former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos’ vast shoe collection. Many note that Madame is comparable to a modern Marie Antoinette, indulging in costly fashion while 90% of the country languished in poverty. Social relevance aside, the shoes- and their quantity-are dazzling. We are told of a story of one former museum custodian who said that she could not help but try on some of the shoes during closing time. Being of nearly the same shoe size as the former First Lady- eight and a half- I could not say that I wouldn’t be tempted to do just the same.
The tour ended at the main outlet and factory of Otto Shoes, which was down the block from the museum. We saw a lot of the raw products that go into making shoes- the types of leather, buttons, beads, thread, etc. A shoe as the final product is lovely…but so can the material that go into it. YTRIP’s resident photographer was feeling a fur
like cloth with reverence until Brian told him that the material was still untreated for mites. It couldn’t have been any rawer
than that. True to main outlet form, Otto sold shoes and bags- some which haven’t been released in malls yet- at their first level. I was able to score two evening bags, prototype designs of the daughters of Otto’s owner who wanted to try their hand at bag fashion. One was a gold and crème crocheted doily bag shaped like a fan and the other was a leather and tan faux fur
clutch- not bad at Php300.00. each.
Brian was kind enough to give us a ride back to where we started, his factory. We see some of the finished products of his latest and last collection before leaving the Philippines. They are exquisitely designed and crafted, of a quality ready to be paraded down a Bryant Park catwalk during New York Fashion Week if destiny has it.
They are made in Marikina and this walking tour has shown us how it’s possible.
The author, Anne A. Elicaño, is one of the people who helped found YTRIP. She works as a freelance writer. She travels whenever and wherever her feet (and sometimes, her job) take her.
