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Text & Photos : Nadia Pramudita
  If you draw your eyes across the busy streets of Melbourne – Elizabeth Street to be exact – and just give little attention to details, you will see on the second floor of an eerie magic shop there lies a hidden treasure of Melbourne, which you may have missed all this time. Captains of Industry it is, a wondrous site for those who know it.
As I walked my way to the second floor via the alley of Somerset Place, a different atmosphere suddenly stroke me. It seems as if I was walking into a post-war site, full with authentic artifacts from those banal years, yet they give a certain life to the place in present time. James, who is lurking behind the café’s kitchen sink at that particular moment, greeted Whiteboard Journal. It was almost 4 pm, right at the time when the place was going to call it a day. And yes that’s how early people here pack up and go home. Perhaps that is a sign of life enjoyment within the people here.
Captains of Industry is the kind of place where you would feel at home and yet it has the ambient of a restless working studio, the kind of place where you would be able to throw your ideas out and really accelerate yourself, or even just a place to chat slowly with your fellow mates. It is a comfortable space indeed for any kind of your business. Not that they don’t care what you are doing here, James knows his customers personally.He is one of those Chemistry guys who didn’t feel right in what he was doing then bravely turned his way around into doing something that he really is passionate about. How good is that to know that you are passionate in making shoes, making real shoes, unlike those lower grade looking kitsch synthetic leather shoes these days. |
Not that we are underestimating other shoes, but James is making the real deal here. James never really learned how to make shoes, probably it is the goodness of being self-taught: you can explore as much as you are willing to. He believes that making shoes is a meticulous process hence he carefully makes each of the shoes according to his customer’s preferences.
So far it has been a pair of proper shiny derby shoes for a lawyer, a more subtle brown oxford shoes, or a pair of vintage-looking boots. He was spotted wearing a dang fine pair of shoes he claims is a reject, but we obviously didn’t think so. It is a service-oriented business that they are doing here. Captains of Industry really feels the necessity to engage with whoever comes through their door, and I guess it is what keeps people coming back. Whilst doing that, they also want to preserve history (in their own acclaimed way)
and willing to expand more of what they are doing by adding a whisky bar (which has been their dream reverie since they started), creating a whole range of men’s grooming products, and extending their space in the future.Ergo, a nice conversation ended as James prepared to end the day and cleaned up his café’s open kitchen, and yes a definite sense of eagerness in doing things properly can be felt. One thing he has in mind is to keep ‘shopping in a slower pace’ which eventually will create an experience rather than just coming to a shop and getting what you want (if you really know what you want) and just blast away after that. Captains of Industry certainly is creating a more proper way of shopping, and we adore that. |
