KARACHI: He's made shoes for two of Pakistan's former prime ministers – Liaquat Ali Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
Now, 80-year-old Eijaz Hussain is struggling to keep the profession of handcrafted shoes alive. His son 53 year old, Sajjad Hussain, runs the management of the factory, City Fashion, while he keeps himself engaged with only designing and molding the shoes to ensure perfection in the facility where handcrafted shoes are produced.
Hussain says he was 10 when he first started working as a cobbler at a local factory in Karachi. With impending age and the demand for handmade shoes waning, today he is among a group of 12 shoesmiths who are beating all odds to keep the tradition, and their 35-year-old factory, alive.
“I prefer to earn my livelihood by working with my hands. I'm willing to train the new generation in the craft, but there are no facilities...nor are they interested," Muhammad Rafique, 75, one of the artisans at the City Fashion factory said.
The company that employs them is located close to the Edhi Sard Khana in Ancholi, in the Federal B Area of Karachi city. It's in dire straits and comprises only four rooms, which includes an office and a store room.
“There are only 12 workers and most of them are in their 70s and 80s. The new generation is not interested in learning the art because they have better opportunities in other fields. Being a cobbler doesn't provide incentives such as medical insurance, work benefits etc," Sajjad Hussain, the 53-year-old owner of City Fashion said, adding that modern machinery – which produces cheap footwear using artificial leather – isn't helping the cause either.
“The quality of handmade shoes is far superior to those made using machines and they are durable too. But, how many can we make without facilities?" Eijaz Hussain, who migrated from Alighar in India before settling in Larnakana where he learnt the craft, said.
For the purpose, each pair of shoes goes through six stages of craftsmanship, before it is ready for sale. These include designing, cutting of the leather, making the sole, fitting the bottom and top parts into a wooden frame or mould and finally stitching all the pieces together.
The entire process takes about a week to complete and fetches each cobbler Rs 30,000 per month.Abdul Qayum, who was an apprentice in undivided India prior to the creation of Pakistan in 1947, said he's purposely discouraged his four sons from taking the mantle forward as it pays poorly and the work involved is too tiresome.
"It's a lot of hardwork and there are no rewards afterwards. I have not taught them the art of shoemaking and now they are working in other professions," Qayum, 80, said.
The only incentive, he added, is that the demand for handmade shoes goes up by 30 percent on Eid every year, ensuring the artisans have a little more cash to take back home.
“As compared to last Eid, the prices have gone up by 20-25 percent but I am forced to absorb the price shock because my customers are almost as old as my business and I don’t want to lose them. The cliental has multiplied since last 35 years. Profit is not so high because all the work is handmade that limits the production," Sajjad, who also exports the shoes in small quantities, said.
Each pair of shoes costs about Rs4,500 to make, but these – after they are procured by middlemen – are often sold at four times their original price at designer stores.
“I have also sold a pair of shoes for Rs150,000, too, which was made on order. At designer outlets, our shoes are sold for Rs10,000 to Rs15,000," Sajjad said, adding that some of the key challenges he and his 27-year-old son, Shahab Hussain, face include a low rate of profits and increasing competition due to cheap imports from China.
“China is our major competitor but the products that are coming from China are not made of genuine leather. Our quality is best. I think what we are producing with meager resources is far better than what they are producing with huge resources," the younger Hussain said.
He's hopeful that if the government can provide better facilities and duty free imports for machinery, Pakistan's handmade shoes can give a tough competition to international markets.
“We have fine leather, but imported raw material – including chemicals used in the processing – are expensive due to rupee devaluation which makes the raw material costly. Better incentives are the only way to keep this tradition alive," Sajjad said.
