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

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Appointment with: Catherine Hervé, Meilleur Ouvrier de France in duchess lace
When: 2pm, February 17th, 2009
Where: Her weekly lacemaking class at a community center in Paris’ 15th arrondissement.
On the Agenda: Learn the secrets to handmade lace from France’s preeminent expert.
Glossary: Métier (cushion), gatlap (cloth with cut-out center), fuseaux (bobbins), fil (thread), grillé (grill-like pattern), toilé (cross-cross pattern)

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This might come as a shock, but before I discovered the haute handiwork of lace designer Catherine Hervé at a fair devoted to French artisans, the subject of handmade lace had never once flittered through my mind. (Crazy, I know!) Was it like crocheting? Did it require looms? Were there patterns? Easels? For the life of my, I just couldn’t picture how it was done, who was doing it, where they did it and why.

There was only one person I knew could solve this puzzle: the Queen of Lace herself.

In 2004, Hervé became the third person since 1924 to win the Meuilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman of France) title for duchess lace, giving her instant street cred as France’s leading practitioner of this painstaking craft.

After winning the MOF, Hervé traded in her job as a legal assistant to devote herself full-time to lace. By blending traditional techniques with non-conventional materials (colored threads, rayon, leather, wool, silk) she hopes to give the endangered medium a fresh, modern patina. In addition to creating her own original designs (which include three-dimensional lace sculptures, lace jewels, lace canvases, and lace appliqués for apparel) Hervé teaches the art of this mysterious medium each week to a growing number of devotees. From fashion designers and chatty grannies to summer tourists and this guy from Chartes who likes frog motifs, lace holds a seductive spell over a rather eclectic cast—one that I plan to temporarily join to witness the virtuoso at work.

So there I am one Tuesday afternoon sitting in on a lacemaking gathering at the community center out in Paris 15th where Hervé conducts her classes. Six women are seated around two rectangular tables. In each woman’s lap is a large circular pillow (métier) covered by a piece of blue cloth with a small circular cutout in its center (gatlap). The window of the fabric is placed over the section of the lace under construction, like a surgeon’s cloth during an operation. Peeking through the circle is a dash of lace with strands hanging out and down into a system of wood bobbins (fuseaux) that patter pleasantly when jostled about. Scalpels, spotlights, magnifiers, pins and patience are in abundance too; further adding to the strangely surgical, yet restorative energy in the room.

The women are each working on a beautiful lace pattern designed specifically for them by Hervé. An illustrator since childhood, Hervé first fell in love with lace as a way to bring tactility to her drawings.

Using cotton thread as fine as hair to create nature-inspired motifs (flowers, animals, leaves), the technique being taught is duchess bobbin lace, an extremely delicate type of lace name after the duchess of Brabant, Marie-Henriette of Austria who later became the Queen of Belgium. Patron of the arts and a lace fetishist, she popularized this new variety of lace introduced in the 1850s by adorning much of her royal wardrobe with it.

“Lace is the opposite of embroidery,” explains Hervé of the mystifying nature of her art. “Instead of applying thread to fabric, you create fabric with thread.”

Pins keep the pattern and threads in place on the pillow while the lace maker maneuvers her bobbins to create two different stitches: grillé, a grill-like pattern that controls density and thus contrast; and toilé, a criss-cross pattern that creates a fabric-like effect. The epitome of labor intensive, the average lace-maker clocks a whopping 1cm2 (roughly the size of a quarter) per hour. Even with exactly the same pattern, materials, and technical plan, however, it’s impossible to recreate the same effect twice. Handmade lace displays the unique style and characteristics of its maker.

So what are you waiting for? See how your signature style translates to lace at one of Hervé’s hands-on workshops. All courses are conducted in French, so you’ll need to bring a translator or study up.

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Sept-June: 414E per trimester (six, three-hour courses, twice monthly)
July-August: 69E (one three-hour class); week long summer workshops available by request.

It’s only my fourth post but I already have a confession to make (and no, it’s not about the cutie above).

One of the reasons why I’m doing this project is to satisfy my longstanding curiosity for people who pursue unusual professional paths. I have never been blessed (or cursed, perhaps?) with a burning career calling, but I am fascinated with those who are—especially when their shtick is super obscure.

Working as a journalist has served me well in this department. Interviewing someone is like having a giant question pass printed on your forehead. From challenging and quirky to just plain personal, you can ask your subject just about anything.

For me, the ultimate “jackpot conversation” is when I walk out of the experience with a juicy slice into someone’s life and a completely new window into the world.

That’s how I felt after my visit to Avenel L, a year-old workshop and design firm dedicated to the art of woodworking.

It wasn’t because the space was ravishing (see above!) or packed floor-to-ceiling with gorgeous handcrafted furniture, but because after two hours speaking with the boys behind the studio I realized that I had unearthed something much larger and exciting than I had expected.

Without sounding overly dramatic, Avenel L reassured me that France (which has been suffering from a bad case of mild depression for at least a decade) was on some kind of self-healing path via its kids.

Picking up, dusting off and reviving some of France’s vanishing crafts, young artisan-designers are propelling the country’s weighty handmade ”heritage” into the 21st century with beauty and bravado.

What’s interesting about this new creative wave is that it’s not simply about preserving aging skills, but using them to anticipate the aesthetic tastes of tomorrow.

Avenel L is in many ways the most striking example of this movement that I’ve yet to see. It should come as no surprise, really. The founder of this fresh-faced trio is the award-winning “ebeniste’” (cabinetmaker) Ludovic Avenel. In 2007, at the ripe old age of 23, Avenel won the outrageously prestigious Liliane Bettancourt pour l’Intelligence de la Main, an award given each year to a French artisan in a specific field.

His masterpiece Empreinte (Imprint)—a duo of virtually-identical art deco commodes created using two sets of materials, one modest (cardboard & aluminum) and one luxurious (mahogany & shagreen)—showed off his sleight of hand savvy and technical dexterity.  It also helped him score the 50,000E cash award to jump-start his own company.

Avenel didn’t need to look far for qualified designer-craftsmen to join his team. All he had to do was recruit two of his friends from his Alma mater, the Ecole Boulle, France’s Harvard of artistic crafts. Like Avenel (now 25-yrs-old), Christophe Bret (23) and Steven Leprizé (22) had also been afflicted by the rare-for-France entrepreneurial bug.

Had all the dust in the studio clouded their minds or was something shifting here in France?

“There’s something changing in the world of artistic crafts, especially for designers our age,” says Bret, who looks like he should be playing Game Boy rather than giving an insightful analysis into his cohort’s professional ambitions. “If you look back only ten years ago, most of the graduates from Ecole Bulle went into restoration right after school. The emphasis was on technique, not original form. A new generation is looking for ways to merge the artisan with the artistic,” adds Leprizé, who has coined the term objects functionnels artistiques (functional artistic objects) to describe their work.

Wood is at the heart of the Avenel L design philosophy. Everything—from custom-crafted commodes overlaid with fragile shagreen (160,000E), to embossed leather  jewelry boxes (4,000E)—begins with the sturdy stuff. It’s what warms the designs and grounds their daring, sculptural shapes in the real.

Bound by a common commitment to innovation and quality, what sets Avenel L apart from most other design studios is their ability to handle every facet of conceptualization and fabrication.

That kind of A-to-Z expertise doesn’t come cheap, nor is it achieved overnight, so you won’t be hobbling out of the studio with a cabinet on your back. Make an appointment, speak to the kids, tell them what you like, they’ll design it, built it, and send it your way. An original work of furniture art made by baby-faced craftsmen who are helping to heal the French psyche? Try topping that!