Since all of Paris closes shop in August, I’ll be posting “by appointment” discoveries made during my summertime travels back home in the USA this month.  Hope you enjoy this special summer edition with content from New York and Los Angeles.

Custom. Handmade. Shoes. Say those three words aloud and your mind hops a plane to the fashion capitals of Europe where couture cobbling has been celebrated for centuries. But don’t buy your brain’s tickets just so fast… The special new stomping ground for original, handcrafted shoes is neither in Paris, London or Milan, but in a back alley, by appointment shop in none other than Los Angeles!

Over the last fifteen years Southern California native Georges Esquivel—whose men’s and women’s shoe brand Esquivel Shoes was recently announced as one of the 2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists—has built a mini shoe empire to rival Europe’s leading luxury labels. The best part of all, it happened entirely by chance (ahh, you gotta love America!).

Years before “artisanal” became a marketing buzzword, Esquivel was reworking vintage clothes for his SoCal musician friends. An unexpected jaunt to a cobbler in Mexico spawned his first pair of custom shoes. His friends went wild and started clamoring for their own pairs. Before long Esquivel found a seasoned shoemaker in L.A. to build his designs. To cut costs, Esquivel offered to help out around the shop. “He said, ‘sure, take out the trash,’” recalls Esquivel with a chuckle. “So I went from taking out the trash to organizing the shop and cutting leather. Two-and-a-half years later I knew how to make a pair of shoes.”

That was somewhere in the mid-90s. Esquivel is kind of hazy with the dates (he wasn’t plotting a business, you see). Soon after he found himself an atelier where he could make shoes for himself, his friends and his wife (yes, I’m jealous.) Inspired by retro-fashion, punk rock music and the irreverent vibe of his city, Esquivel added it all to the mix. The result was an infectious, high-low blend of painstaking execution, classical cuts and kick-ass character. It wasn’t long before orders started coming in from all over the world. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, members of the band The Killers, and Diane Von Furstenberg, who recently went bonkers for the Monica boot, are just handful of his eclectic, well-heeled clients.

“There’s a new consumer and I’m the new brand for that consumer. What does everyone want these days? Individuality. That’s what I create.”

The secret to Esquivel’s success is the individualism and intimacy he offers his clients. “You go to any luxury brand and you don’t know who’s making your shoes, where they’re being made. I’m not about that,” says Esquivel, who still fits many of his full custom clients. After creating the prototype with his head craftsman, his team of artisans—using the finest hides, polishes and parts—makes every one of his shoe designs by hand. Because each shoe is crafted individually, there’s no upset to production or price point if the color of the leather, toe shape, insoles or linings are altered on the original design.

That means clients, including yours truly (my pair of all-nude Juliana hand-punched wing tips, above, are my new statement shoes for fall), can have their shoes custom-made easily and for little extra cost.

Q&A with Georges Esquivel, founder and owner of Esquivel Shoes

When an idea strikes, can you just create a new shoe?
Anytime I want. I conceive shoes everyday. Because I’ve been able to create this unique business with my own in-house shop, I’m spoiled: I can develop a new collection in a week. I can see what it’s going to look like without losing time between sketches, design assistants, production and sample makers. I can just talk to my pattern maker and tell him what I want and then have it in 2 days. The problem for most designers is that they have to go somewhere to get their ideas produced and are bound by all of the logistical restrictions. I don’t have any restrictions, which is really cool. I can literally do whatever I want.

Do you still make the shoes yourself?
My specialty is the burnishing, the leather treatment. I develop the first shoe and make it with our craftsmen and when it’s finished, it becomes our prototype sample. I’m involved in every step of the process.

California doesn’t have the handmade shoe reputation of a Paris, London or Milan. Has that been a handicap to you?
If it’s negative I don’t really engage.  Listen, I have shoemakers that are 2nd and 3rd generation. Who’s to say that someone in London is a better shoemaker? We’re all people with skills; it’s just a matter of wanting to do something better or special. For the longest time I didn’t have access to the same materials, but now that I do, it’s a leveled playing field.

How do you feel your SoCal background has impacted your style?
I think that my upbringing brings a whole different sensibility to the shoes. In my opinion, the shoes from London all look the same. The shoes from Paris all look the same. My shoes, of course they’re mostly men’s shoes so you’re not going to be doing wacky, crazy stuff. It’s still a very recognizable silhouette or toe shape, but it has my rebelliousness in it and the SoCal punk influence, the rock n’roll, the music.  It doesn’t have to be so dark and grey and dreary, it should be fun, it’s fashion.

Tell us about the different custom categories?
We have three tiers. First, is “full custom-made,” where I measure somebody and develop the last, the fit, and make a prototype. We adjust the last to their foot, made adjustments of the prototype. The starting price is $3000 but the skies the limit. If you wanted exotic skins or gold buckles, we can do it. Second is “made-to-order,” where you try a pair of shoes on tell us your size and you can pick your color, sole and upper design. They you have your “limited production” series that goes to retailers. But even the retailers can come in and pick out their leather or color. It’s very custom focus. Individuality is what we want to create with our brand.

Which models are you feeling right now?
One of my favorites is the Gaston boot. It starts off as nude leather from a beautiful tannery in Norway and we just rub in the colors. The boot is all one color with different shades of burgundy. I don’t like shoes to be so perfect and polished. That whole super sleek and clean thing just doesn’t attract me. I like more texture in my leathers. I’ve always wanted my shoes to look broken in and older, it adds character.

Where do your skins come from?
My skins are mainly European hides, from Norway, Italy, France and Spain. There’s a tannery in Norway that we use called Borge Garveri, that’s just beautiful. It’s a colder climate so the cows don’t have as many marks on them. They were just nominated as one of the top ten tanneries in Europe.

When did you venture into women’s shoes?
About two years ago my design assistant had me make a pair of shoes for her. They were basically masculine shoes, which I’ve been doing for my wife for a long time, and they looked really cool. So then I started researching and developing a little more to adapt our process to make women’s shoes. The toe shape, the heel height, and the weight of the leather— the construction is very different for women so we had to fine-tune that. It took two years, so this year, ’09, was our first to have a true women’s collection.

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Number of toe shapes: 13
Model variations: 100+
Phone orders: Absolutely, most orders are conducted by phone.
Delivery time: Depending on complexity and client location, between 1-3 months.
Appointments: info@esquivelshoes.com, or call 714-670-2200
Prices:Full Custom ($3000 and up); Made-to-Measure or Ready-to-Wear ($550-$1000)
2009 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner announcement: November 16, 2009

Since all of Paris closes shop in August, I’ll be posting “by appointment” discoveries made during my summertime travels back home in the USA this month.  Hope you enjoy this special summer edition with content from New York and Los Angeles.

Would you believe me if I told you that people travel across the world to have their private parts waxed in New York City? You ought to, because like pizza, bagels and overproduced musicals, NYC does the Brazilian bikini wax best. More specifically, Janea Padilha (above, center) of the J Sisters salon in midtown Manhattan does it best. As well she should—she invented it!

In 1987, a decade after the full-bloom bush was de rigueur, Janea (pronounced Jōhné but also referred to as “Jane”) introduced America to her minimalist design. “It was very hard to convince my clients in New York to do it,” remembers Janea, who practiced for years on herself before taking her technique public. “Finally, one of my clients said okay. She came back a few hours later and I thought ‘uh oh,’ but she had her friends with her and they wanted the same thing. One of the girls used to work for Elle magazine. One month later we came out in Elle. It was our first magazine. After that boom, boom, boom.”

The explosive response is plastered all over the walls of the beauty salon she and her six sisters (Jocely, Jonice, Joyce, Juracy, Jussara, and Judseia) opened upon emigrating from Brazil. Throughout the gorgeous, three story, turn-of-the-century Vanderbilt townhouse are autographed portraits of their sexy celebrity clientele with quotes like “You changed my life” (Gwyneth Paltrow), “Thanks 4 Everything” (Fergie) and “I’ll keep coming back” (Kate Winslet) scrawled across them.

Despite the fame factor, the atmosphere is anything but stuffy. Faded fancy furniture, decorative molding and chincy gold frames give an unpretentious, relaxed vibe to the stately salon. So nonchalant and relaxed is the energy that you half expect to see sand swirling at your feet. The buzzing Portuguese of the matte-skinned staff only enhances the effect. In fact, you could happily waste away the hours just soaking up the sitcom-worthy setting (the swimsuit sales guy pushing psychedelic two-pieces on prim ladies, the orange-hued man sipping ice tea while waiting to get his back waxed, the ladies chattering in the hair area with those gorgeous bay windows).

Once inside the spare, waxing cubicle, Janea sizes up the situation and gets to work dispensing life advice and wax with matching gusto. Oh, I forgot to mention, she’s not only an expert on good-looking privates, but sex, relationships, family and food. “I have some clients that come back before they need a waxing in order to finish the conversation we had the last time,” she says of her devout following who come to her as much for her waxing as her personality-filled prescriptions. Not bad for seventy-five bucks?

But soon you won’t have to bare it all for a dose of her sexy Brazilian knowledge. In April, 2010,  she’s coming out with a book, co-authored by the hilarious writer, Martha Frankel and published by Perigee Books. In an exclusive interview, Frankel gives us a whisper of their book, Secrets of Brazilian Sexy.

Q&A with Martha Frankel

The book is about Janea, the woman who not only invented the Brazilian bikini wax but also gives fabulous life advice?
Yes, it’s a self-help book that’s very specific. It’s about what do when you’re unhappy in a relationship. Janea gives great boyfriend advice, great makeup advice, and of course, great sex advice.

What are her top 5 Brazilian secrets?
Number one is to be comfortable in your own skin and to work with what you have. She talks about how women are always saying, “I’m going to be happy when I loose ten pounds or earn ten more millions buy ten more pairs of shoes.” For me that’s her most important advice, to just enjoy who you are, when you are and how you are without waiting for the train that’s not coming in. Number two and three are how to ask for what you want in your relationship and get what you want from your man. A lot of her clients complain about their husbands and she’ll ask, “Did you tell them what you want?” And they’ll say no. She says things like “they’re only men, not psychics.” Number four is about treating your young children as children and adult children as adults and not the other way around. She says that has an impact on everything—how you expect yourself to be, how your children relate to you, how to create a balanced, healthy dynamic in the home. Number five is all about cleanliness.

What role does cleanliness play in the concept of Brazilian sexy?
Not only does a Brazilian keep that area clean, it creates a great feeling, a sexy feeling.  It reminds you that you have a vagina, even if you’d like to forget about it. Having a Brazilian is a sure-fire way of thinking about yourself sexually.

How was the Brazilian bikini wax borne?
One day Janea said she saw a woman in a thong bikini on a beach in Brazil with a lot of hair sticking out. The sight surprised her because she didn’t know that women had so much hair down there. She went home and looked and saw she had it too, so she started waxing that area between the vagina and the anus.

What other tips will readers learn when the book comes out?
They’ll learn how to re-virginize themselves. They’ll learn when to wear lingerie and when not to. They’ll learn when a marriage is worth saving, and when it needs to end. They’ll learn how to make a relationship stronger, what to do and not to do at the beginning of a new relationship.

Even though she has tons of celebrity clients, I hear she’s impervious to fame. Any stories there?
I asked her who else her celebrity clients were and she said, “Oh that very pretty woman. She’s got a beautiful ass and she’s a good singer. What is it? Lopes?” And I was like, “You mean J Lo?” I don’t think she’s that into pop culture. She knows who her celebrity clients are because they tell her. She doesn’t really care that much. They don’t get any better treatment that you or I.

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To make an appointment, call: 212-750-2485 or 212-750-0170
Price: Brazilian bikini wax, $75, not including gratuities.

Since all of Paris closes shop in August, I’ll be posting “by appointment” discoveries made during my summertime travels back home in the USA this month.  Hope you enjoy this special summer edition with content from New York, Los Angeles and Maine.

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Appointment: To follow a 2-hour guided tour of Lotusland, the  37-acre estate and private garden created by Madame Ganna Walska.
Where: Ninety miles north of Los Angeles in Montecito, an affluent suburb of Santa Barbara
When: July 2nd, 2009
Time 1:30pm

An international celebutante and irresistible beauty, Madame Ganna Walska loved plants. And opera. And seducing wealthy older men. (Don’t you love her already?) All accounts from her era speak of a captivating creature with a preternatural proclivity for exuberance and glamorous excess. No one batted an eyelash at the outrageous title of her memoire, Always Room At The Top, published in 1946 because, what the hell else would she call it?

From her humble beginnings in Poland until her death in 1984 at the age of ninety-seven, she married six men—including a Russian count, a renowned endocrinologist, a Rockefeller divorcée, the heir to the Smith Carpet Manufacturing company, the inventor of the Death Ray, and a Yogi mystic with a philosophy PhD—who through death or divorce passed much of their fortune along to her.

But it’s what “Madame” (née Hanna Puacz) did with her accumulated wealth that was the final glorious act in her masterpiece theatre of life. In 1941, at the urgings of her sixth and final husband (she gave up after that) she purchased a thirty-seven-acre estate ninety miles north of Los Angeles in the manicured town of Montecito.

Initially intended as a retreat for Tibetan Lamas and a place for her husband to practice his spiritual work, she christened it “Tibetland.” After their divorce, she changed the name to “Lotusland” in tribute to the rare Indian flowers in her lotus pond and her newfound independence. From that day forward her one and only love was her garden.

“She was a total diva and she was very smart. She created this place so that people would talk about her long after her death,” says our docent before heading out on a 2-hr tour through the private botanical garden she spent the last 40 years of her life designing with the brash, eccentric whimsy that she applied to every aspect of her life.

She famously sent her garden assistants out on tours of the neighborhood with strict instructions to purchase the largest and most magnificent plants they could find, regardless as to whether or not the specimens were up for sale. Armed with cash and Walska’s determination on their backs, they always came home with the goods.

Channeling her years on the stage and penchant for theatrics, she used plants for their form and structure to create dramatic botanical experiences.

The 3,000 rare and exotic species in Lotusland are organized into enchanting chapters.  Some are poetic, like the Blue Garden with its delicate mélange of blue-shaded species; some insouciant and bold, like the mass plantings of Giant Palms; some moody and biographic, like the Theatre Garden full of statues from Madame’s chateau in France that were smuggled to the USA during the war; and others gloriously excessive and wild, like the Succulent Garden with it’s Climbing Onion plants or the Cycad Garden, the second largest in the world and by far the estate’s most valuable.

It’s impossible to tour the gardens without feeling the idiosyncratic force of nature behind it, just as Madame had wished.

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Reservations: Visits are by appointment only. To make a tour reservation call 805-969-9990 or email reservation@lotusland.org.
Schedule: Tours are offered 10am and 1:30pm Wednesday through Saturday between mid-February and mid-November.
Admission: Adults 19 years of age and older, $35; children age five to 18, $10; children under five, free.

Since all of Paris closes shop in August, I’ll be posting “by appointment” discoveries made during my summertime travels back home in the USA this month.  Hope you enjoy this special summer edition with content from New York, Los Angeles and Maine.

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My dad is a newly retired New York City public school teacher.  Since he stopped working a few years back he’s been going a bit stir crazy, and understandably so. Imagine loosing your public after 40 years speaking to a crowd?

So, while emailing with him a couple of months ago about my forthcoming summer visit to NYC I had a revelation. “Hey dad,” I wrote, “have your ever thought of giving private walking tours of Lower Manhattan? You love a rapt audience and know the subject better than anyone. Imagine bringing your maps to life!”

Ten years ago, around the same time that I moved to France, my father started developing new media tools for the classroom. A research fanatic like me, he’d incorporate esoteric audio files, interactive maps, videos and whatever else interesting he dug up to create original multi-media presentations. He became the school’s resident new media man, and earned a reputation as a self-made savant (a Google representative even wrote to him to praise him for the innovative use of their mapping software).

While overseas, I’d read about my dad’s latest discoveries via his blog. In between rants about the failings of the NYC public school system or obscure clips of his favorite singers performing, he’d post some incredibly powerful stuff about our family’s history. At the time he was working at a school on the Lower East Side smack in the middle of the neighborhood where his parents grew up. Around the corner from his school was the apartment where my grandfather lived, several blocks away the  Synagogue where he met my grandmother, nearby the cleaners where my aunt and uncle worked, yadda, yadda, yadda….

Inspired by his surroundings, he started reconstructed the past piece by piece using historic documents, photographs, and a treasure trove of census bureau records he’d found in the trash. The result was a (highly personal) new-media tapestry of early 20th century Lower Manhattan immigrant life. All that reminiscing led to birth of his second blog, an homage to Knickerbocker Village, the apartment complex where he grew up and the first “experiment in government-financed, low-cost housing” in the USA. My dad lived there for 12 years and credits it for framing some of the happiest moments of his life. Based on the emotional outpouring his blog has provoked from former KVers like him, he’s tapped into something.

So what, you might wonder, is so stinking special about Knickerbocker Village?

That question was the cornerstone of the private tour (he’s the testing the concept) my dad took me and a handful of my friends on through the neighborhood cradling Knickerbocker Village, a district once referred to as the “fourth ward.”

“I like to talk use the term ‘wards,’” he says to our group at our meeting spot behind the Municipal Building in Manhattan. “It’s the old fashioned way of talking about New York. It goes back to the origins of the city and conjures up that old history.”

To prove his point, he begins with a story that stumps us all. Back in 1854, nearly a century before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in Alabama, a black woman named Elizabeth Jennings challenged the laws of segregation by boarding a white-only streetcar juts a few blocks from where we’re standing. Her case went to trial and the lawyer who represented her was future President of the United States, Chester A. Arthur.

Because there’s no physical trace of the case (the street no longer exists), my dad pulls out an old illustration of the streetcar she boarded, a picture of Jennings and a clipping from a newspaper at the time of the trial. This is just a little taste from the smorgasbord of multi-media props my dad has prepared for the tour.

Our next stop requires a stroll past the skateboarders under the Brooklyn Bridge to a forgotten address in history: No. 1, Cherry Street, Georges Washington’s executive mansion during the time (who knew??) that NYC was the seat of government. The site is now a swirling mass of traffic ramps leading onto the bridge.

“Are there any exampled of architecture from the same era?” I ask. “Water Street, the next block down has a very old bar that goes back to 1830s as well as third oldest house in the city,” explains my dad. “Almost all of NY was wiped out by fires, so there are very few houses that go back to the 1800s.”

Past the ancient low storey homes on the cobblestoned streets of Cherry Hill and just a stone’s throw from Seahorse, an adorable seafood restaurant that we promise to come back and try, we find ourselves, I kid you not, on a secret beach under the Brooklyn Bridge (it’s not a place where you’d dare sunbathe, but exciting nonetheless).

“There are big plans for this area stretching from the Battery as far up as the Williamsburg Bridge,” my dad says while preparing an audio interlude about Alfred E. Smith using a DIY speaker system. “They’re going to make this into a park similar to the new High Line on the West Side and there’s a farmers market planned down the road.”

Before Robert Moses engineered a new urban layout, the neighborhood employed and housed thousands of workers from the various mills, factories and ports in the area. There were also dozens of daily markets on the “slips,” or inlets where boats would dry dock and sell goods. One of the most famous markets was the Catherine Street Eel market on what is now Pike Street, where we’re all gathered now.

“Some of the slaves who came with their owners to the market did double duty; not only were they there to sell the goods but to entertain to attract business,” says my dad, holding up a NY Times clipping from the era.

While fascinating, none of this trivia could rival the final stop on our journey. As we walk through the gates and into the beautiful, tranquil courtyard of Knickerbocker Village, the image of a dad rekindling his family roots with his daughter at his side, is the highlight of the day for us all.

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Famous People from the Fourth Ward:
Alfred E. Smith, governor of New York from 1923-1928.
Eddie Cantor, radio and early television entertainer from the 20s- 40s known as the “Apostle of Pep.”
Jimmy Durante, radio and early television comedian from the 20s-70s, who jokingly referred to himself as “Schnozzola.”
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, couple found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage and executed in 1953. They lived in Knickerbocker Village with their two sons before their arrest.
Lefty Ruggiero, member of the mob played by Al Pacino in the film Donnie Brasco

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Contact: Send my dad an email through his blog for additional tour information

UPDATE:  My dad now gives his Fourth Ward tour through the Lower East Side History Project. Click here to sign up!