It”™s a Monday morning, “catching-up day” at Occhicone Fine Leather Goods on Port Chester”™s North Main Street. Which is why the gold-handled front door stays locked as the village”™s downtown revs to life and a fretful female peers in and raps a distress signal on plate glass. Which is why a few women sneak in through the shop”™s back door to drop off shoes that can”™t wait another day for the healing hands of Occhicone.
It”™s family here, this business. They won”™t give you the boot even when they”™re closed.
At the front counter, Rosa and Anna Occhicone ”“ mother and daughter ”“ sort through and tag women”™s suede and leather boots. From a long Gucci box Rosa pulls a pair of sleekly stylish, calf-high brown boots. The sales slip reads “$1,295” ”“ leather from a golden calf perhaps.
It”™s an alteration job for the Saks Fifth Avenue store up the road in Greenwich. “We have to make them an inch and a half bigger,” Rosa says. Big bucks, big calves. Saks, Neiman Marcus, Michael Kors, they all send their high-end leather goods to this shop in Port Chester.
“They can run up to $10,000,” Anna says. “It”™s crazy.” Then there”™s the austerity-budget pair from TJ Maxx she lifts from the counter. They fix all kinds at Occhicone Fine Leather Goods.
Giuseppe Occhicone, the shop”™s 81-year-old master, emerges through a curtain from a crammed workroom where a dozen well-trained employees catch up on orders at sewing machines and work benches. He calls himself “leather crafter and cobbler.” Giuseppe ”“ after half a century in America, some call him “Joe”™”™”“ turns well-tanned alligator hides and ostrich skins into handbags for which customers will pay a few or several thousand dollars. They pay handsomely too to walk in his shoes. You want a nice belt to hold up those Armani slacks, he”™ll make it for you.
“When I was 14, I made my first pair of custom shoes,” he says. That was for a lady in Andretta, the village in Italy where Giuseppe was a fifth-generation cobbler in his family. “I learned the trade from my father and my father learned the trade from his father.”
At 17, he left his defeated and war-ravaged country for Venezuela. He found a job in a shoe factory and studied accounting at night school, then balanced the company books with his handed-down leather trade. In 1960, he arrived in New York City.
“The first thing I start, I opened a shop on 58th between Lexington and Park.” He settles onto a leather-cushioned bench. “In those days, every block, they had four or five cobblers.”
Which is why a real estate broker told the immigrant without collateral to go away and come back with a co-signer when he asked to rent the space. “”˜You can”™t open a shop on 58th Street with no money ”“ you just came over,”™” he was gruffly told.
Undaunted, Occhicone returned without an escort to the broker”™s office a second time and a third. “So he gave me the place. I never let them down. I paid the rent. It was a successful business. I was there for 23 years.”
Occhicone would open a second shop in Manhattan. Famous names and faces brought their well-shod feet to his shops.
“In those days, I had Mayor Robert Wagner, Ed Sullivan, the actor William Holden, Tony Curtis, Ben Gazzara”¦William Holden wants 14 pairs of shoes.” Occhicone had them Hollywood-ready in about a month.
“We used to do a lot of work for Billy Baldwin,” Jacqueline Kennedy”™s favored designer as she remade the White House. In his television interviews, “He wanted to make sure that the shoes were showing,” says Occhicone, crossing his legs and theatrically dangling a foot. “He said, ”˜I give you a referral.”™”¦Once he brought in Jackie Kennedy.”
“In 1980, I came here. I wanted to get out of the crowd of New York. I said, I have my gray hair, but now get out before I fall behind the counter” and the coroner rules it death from overwork in leather.
“I bought the building and started the shop here. Port Chester was really, really down. In those days, you used to buy one building, get one free.
“People they thought I was nuts. They said, ”˜What are you going to do in Port Chester?”™ I said, ”˜Look, it doesn”™t matter where I open. I”™m going to be OK.”™”
Now Jeanine Pirro is one of his many “top of the line” customers from Westchester and the tristate area. Ask him what she paid for the matching yellow ostrich handbag and sandals he made for her, and Giuseppe is a smiling master of discretion: “A lot.”
An autographed portrait of “Judge Jeanine” in her latest incarnation as a television personality hangs in a display case near a sharp-toothed alligator head. With handwritten brevity, she passes judgment. “To Occhicone, best leather store.”
“It”™s a trade you have to learn,” says the master. “You won”™t become a millionaire, but you”™ll always be able to make a living. If you want to be a millionaire, you have to go to the hedge fund.”
Then you can afford to walk in Occhicone”™s shoes.
Will a sixth generation succeed him in the family trade? He has his daughter and five grandsons but the future of the business is uncertain.
“Some day I have to give up,” says the master.
This is not that day. This is catching-up day for Giuseppe Occhicone.
He invites us to come along to Tarry Market, the upscale food shop on Main Street where the air is fragrant with cheeses and cured meats that hearken to Italy and all good things Italian ”“ by way of Mario Batali.
“I have to have my espresso, otherwise I can”™t function,” says the master. We hoist a cup.
