Meet the Croatian family keeping a dying craft alive – one pair of shoes at a time

Lepen Design (Photo: Private album/supplied)

By Hana Klain

Every pair of shoes carries a history. Some reveal long walks through city streets, others a wedding, a celebration or decades of careful use.

At Lepen Design in Zagreb, those stories don’t end when the leather wears out. For more than forty years, the family behind the workshop has restored treasured footwear and leather goods while preserving a craft that is slowly disappearing.

Their work is not simply about repairing shoes, it’s about extending the life of objects that people cannot imagine throwing away.

Most people assume customers bring you old shoes. In reality, do they bring you memories more often than footwear?

Contrary to the common belief that shoemakers mostly repair old shoes, we actually spend much more time repairing relatively new footwear.

Every now and then, however, someone brings us an older pair of shoes or a handbag that is no longer available to buy but holds deep sentimental value.

Most customers bring branded shoes and bags because, despite the noticeable decline in manufacturing quality, their original purchase price makes professional repair worthwhile.

Interesting fact is that older shoes are often far better made and much easier to restore. Modern footwear relies heavily on synthetic materials that are far more difficult to repair.

Mass production has significantly reduced quality, while the growing use of so-called eco-friendly materials often means shoes wear out faster and cannot be restored at all. As a result, people replace them instead of repairing them.

Is there a pair of shoes that ever made you stop and wonder about the life of the person who wore them?

People in Croatia often have a very relaxed attitude towards their shoes. As we like to say, “I own the shoes, they don’t own me.” That means we regularly see brand-new shoes that have been badly damaged after just one weekend, and from the condition they’re in, we can often imagine exactly what kind of weekend it must have been.

On the other hand, customers also bring us shoes that are several decades old. Sometimes they only need new soles or heel tips, while the uppers remain almost as beautiful as the day they were made.

A thorough cleaning, fresh polish, colour restoration or a few carefully placed stitches are often enough to give them many more years of life.

The contrast is striking: newer shoes usually present more repair challenges than older, high-quality footwear. We also notice differences between generations, young people tend to wear out their shoes much faster, while older customers generally value craftsmanship and take much better care of what they own.

(Photo: Private album/supplied)

Can you tell something about a person simply by the way their footwear wears out?

Absolutely. We can often make surprisingly accurate guesses about where a pair of shoes has been.

Sometimes it’s obvious they spent the weekend dancing at an outdoor festival on gravel. Other times they’ve survived a lakeside celebration, a countryside wedding, or a hiking trip where someone decided climbing a mountain in sandals was a good idea.

We’ve seen shoes stained with melted ice cream, cake, cigarette burns, mud, and occasionally even blood after a nightclub fight.

Then there are shoes that simply show the slow, honest signs of everyday life, worn naturally over months and years.

Every pair tells its own story. If you know how to look, the history of its owner is often written across the leather and the soles.

If you had to name one thing shoemaking has taught you about people, something that has nothing to do with shoes, what would it be?

One encouraging trend we’ve noticed is that more and more people are taking preventive care of their shoes. Many customers bring in brand-new footwear to have protective soles fitted, replace plastic heel tips with quieter and more durable rubber ones, or waterproof suede and other delicate materials before they even wear them.

At the same time, we’ve also seen the opposite. Many people wait far too long before seeking professional help. By the time they walk through our door, their shoes are often already in such poor condition that they are close to being beyond repair.

They hope we can return them to factory condition, and while that’s sometimes possible, it isn’t always realistic. The final result depends on both the condition of the shoes and the quality of the materials they were made from.

We live in an age when almost everything is replaced rather than repaired. Do you think people who choose to repair their shoes are actually trying to preserve something much bigger than the object itself?

It really depends on the shoes. If a pair costs around €50 or less, repairing, or even professional cleaning, it usually isn’t economically worthwhile. With today’s business costs, we simply can’t compete with the prices of mass-produced footwear manufactured in countries where labour and production costs are significantly lower.

Beyond that, every case is different.

Sentimental value cannot be measured in money. People are often willing to invest far more in restoring a pair of shoes or a handbag that reminds them of a special moment, a loved one or an important chapter in their lives.

The same applies to luxury brands. High-end shoes and bags are worth repairing regardless of the cost because restoration is still far less expensive than replacing them with a new item.

Have you ever had someone return after ten or even twenty years because they knew their shoes would end up in the right hands?

Very often. For many years, we handcrafted bespoke shoes for both men and women, and today our former customers regularly return with pairs we made twenty or even thirty years ago. In most cases, those shoes only need new soles and heel tips before they’re ready for many more years of wear.

We also receive shoes and handbags that have been passed down through generations or treasured for decades. Those are, without question, our favourite projects.

We know these aren’t just leather goods, they are objects filled with memories, milestones and stories. Being trusted to restore them is both a privilege and a responsibility.

If the walls of your workshop could talk, which story from the past forty years do you think would surprise people the most?

After four decades in business, we’ve witnessed countless memorable moments, far too many to remember them all. People from every walk of life have passed through our workshop, from factory workers and office employees to doctors, lawyers, artists, politicians and well-known public figures. But to us, every customer has always been treated exactly the same.

One story that has stayed with us happened about seven years ago, when a 90-year-old lady walked into the workshop carrying a pair of boots we had made for her three decades earlier.

They were still in remarkable condition. The only real difference was that she had hand-painted them herself over the years, proudly explaining that she had given them her own artistic touch.

Another memorable moment came recently when a customer brought us a pair of snakeskin pumps she had discovered at Zagreb’s famous Britanski Trg flea market.

She had fallen in love with them the moment she saw them, only to realise later that they had originally been made by us many years ago.

The shoes had been beautifully cared for by their previous owner. All they needed were new heel tips and protective half-soles to make them safe and comfortable for their new owner.

As she told us with a smile, they fit her feet as though they had been made especially for her.

(Photo: Private album/supplied)

If you had to choose one object in your workshop that best represents the Lepen family, what would it be, and why?

Without hesitation, it would be two things.

The first would be the three design awards won by our father, Antun Lepen, for his men’s and women’s footwear collections. They represent decades of dedication, creativity and craftsmanship.

The second would be a sewing machine that has been with our family since the very beginning. It’s a Singer from 1924, and it has followed our workshop from its earliest days, when our parents started the business in a modest 25-square-metre apartment in Zagreb, right through to today.

It’s still in exceptional condition. We often joke that we’ll retire before the machine ever does.

(Photo: Private album/supplied)

Many visitors to Croatia take home wine, a neck tie or a Licitar heart. If you could encourage them to take home one more souvenir inspired by your craft, what would it be?

Without a doubt, it would be our Cro-Ledžica – a wearable Croatian souvenir.

We created this unique design primarily for Croatians living abroad, giving them something they can literally wear as a reminder of home.

The signature motif is Croatia’s iconic red-and-white checkerboard combined with the national tricolour, while customers can personalise everything else – from the leather and colours to the soles and heels.

So far, we’ve made the largest number of pairs for customers in the United States, Canada, Argentina and Australia. We also create versions featuring the traditional first white field of the Croatian checkerboard for those who specifically request it.

(Photo: Private album/supplied)

Lepen Design has evolved through changing times and changing markets. What has remained unchanged since your parents opened the workshop in 1985?

When our parents founded Lepen Design in 1985, they built the business on quality, craftsmanship and respect for every customer. Those values have never changed.

In the years that followed, we handcrafted bespoke shoes for the Croatian market and later worked with renowned Italian fashion houses, including Armani, Prada and Manolo Blahnik.

After the global financial crisis in 2009 reshaped the industry, we adapted by focusing on restoring and repairing shoes, handbags and leather goods, which remains our core business today.

My sister and I are proud to continue the tradition our parents began more than forty years ago. They gave us not only a profession, but also a deep respect for craftsmanship and the people who place their trust in us.

Shoemaking is becoming a rare craft, but we hope there will always be people who value quality and the skill it takes to preserve it. As long as they do, we’ll be here, carrying our family’s tradition into the future.