Matteo Pazzaglia
La Bottega del Cuoio
My father opened the shop in 1981. We have been running this business for thirty years in one of the most beautiful parts of Perugia. During my father’s time, so many people from Perugia and from other places, literally wore out their shoe leathers… if those shoes could talk, they would tell so many stories!
Matteo Pazzaglia is a young craftsman, but he has many years of experience. He was just a child when he used to observe his father at work in the family shoemaker’s shop, La Bottega del Cuoio. Over time, he became a cobbler too.
For more than ten years now, he has been running his father’s Workshop, carrying on the business with the same passion and care.
The shop offers many services and all kinds of shoe repair:resoling all types of leather shoes (Church, Allen-Edmonds, and others, also with a Goodyear welt), broken heel replacement, heel tip replacement, shoes and boots stretching, polishing shoes for formal occasions, and all types of shoe staining, cleaning and dyeing. Furthermore, Matteo Pazzaglia also repairs bags and creates handmade shoes, bags, belts, sandals, and other leather objects. He even makes vintage shoes for parties, historical re-enactment events and parades. In Perugia, we see hundreds of citizens participate at these events every year.
The artisan uses the shoemaker tools but, above all, his hands: handicraft makes it possible to meet any customer’s request. Each piece, completely handmade, has its own history and also carries in itself a little bit of the craftsman’s history and talent.
Deeply attached to the city of Perugia and its precious craftsmanship tradition, Matteo Pazzaglia plans to continue this craft as his father did before him. He wants his Workshop to be a reference point for the inhabitants of Perugia’s city center, and aims to preserve and pass on this ancient craft, which has all but gone by the wayside. Magic happens everyday in the La Bottega del Cuoio shoemaker’s: this craftsman gives new life to objects that seem unusable. The result is always unique and original, deriving from unparalleled technique and passion.
