The Shoes You Choose

At a little Manhattan cobbler shop, the specialty is whatever you want

- By Chris Rovzar. Photographs by Naila Ruechel

Ryan Broms is a real estate development and construction executive who lives and works around drizzly Seattle. He needs boots.

“Not work boots,” he explains. “But I like nice boots.”

So last Thanksgiving when he was visiting New York City, he went to check out a shoe shop that his wife had told him had an interesting concept. In an unassuming little glass-fronted workshop on Madison Avenue, he found rows and rows of monkstraps, brogues, loafers, and lace-ups on plywood shelves. They were familiar shoes, but many of them had an unusual twist: an odd mix of materials, say, or an unorthodox placement of laces.

The rare nature was by design. Many of the shoes had been made to order at the request of clients with specific tastes. At Le Majordome, a Swiss-based custom cobbler that opened in late 2021 in Manhattan, you can choose your own leathers and perforation patterns and mix-and-match styles to make footwear that’s distinctive to you. This turned out to be just what Broms needed.

“I got two pairs of boots,” he says. “One is just a really nice traditional leather, kind of a dress boot with a pretty heavy lug,” or deep rubber sole. “My employees here who spend time in the field are impressed by the lug.”