How Belarusians shoe Lady Gaga, as well as Madonna, Rihanna and 'club kids'
'26.05.2021'
Source: Tut.by
Once, in search of a shoe shop in my area, I stumbled upon a marvelous shop window with redesigned “nikes” and “conversions” on heels and huge striped platforms. Immediately I remembered the nineties, Spice Girls and green shoes on the platform, bought on the Polish market, which I wore with ecstasy even in severe frosts.
Continuing the notes about New York, I do not pretend to be true, but I share the feeling of a city in which I lived for more than five years, met the 30 anniversary and where I plan to live long and happy. If these observations are interesting to you, if they expand your understanding of Americans and American culture, then neither mine nor your time is wasted, writes blogger Alisa Ksenevich specifically for tut.by.
Having talked about this and that with shoe repairman Eugene, we found out that he was from Belarus (Eugene Eugene became in America, because the correct pronunciation of the name would break any American’s language). I met his partner, Boris, later when I brought in another pair of repairs.
Boris looks like a reggae singer - a shock of dreadlocks, semi-sports clothing of free fit, a crafty, penetrating look. His father, Leonid Zuborev, a member of the Writers' Union of Belarus, the author of books for children and youth, led the folk music orchestra and the wandering stars.
In 2015, in Minsk, he was detained by riot police when he treated the picket participants in support of political prisoners to an ice cream at a site near GUM, allegedly for “using foul language”. After checking the documents released. Perhaps, therefore, when asked if he has a desire to visit his homeland, Boris vigorously shakes his head.
“My childhood was spent in the courtyard of GUM,” he says. - We lived right behind him. I studied at school number 75 with an artistic bias, I was easily given drawing, wood carving, music. However, I behaved impudently, received deuces by behavior, and the teachers offered to define me as an apprentice to a shoemaker in the House of Life, so that I would calm down and take something with myself. There I learned the basics of the profession. When the family immigrated to the States, I was 14 years old. There was no money, work, too, in the pocket of 20 dollars. What I just did not do! He worked as a tattoo master, made dentures (by the way, was in good standing), he studied in Connecticut with the tough Italian masters to make shoes from scratch. In Belarus, I did not miss, I twisted this life here. By the way, in America they never take me for Russian, they think I'm from Brazil or from somewhere else.
Perfect pair
In 1994, Boris began working with Eugene Finkelberg in a shoe shop. Being a creative young man, he began what no one had done before him - to alter sneakers and sneakers, creating designer shoes, the look of which was very different from the original and enraptured the local rockers, rappers, punks and ravers.
At that time, the loudest parties were held at the Limelight club, which occupied the building of the former church. Huge platforms have become a piece of the workshop of Boris and Eugene. Near their workshop lined up of party-goers who are suffering to get the coveted couple. At that time, the members of the Club Kids community represented the avant-garde of nightlife. The community was headed by the talented, extravagant and hopelessly addict promoter of the Limelight club Michael Alig. Only for him, Boris and Eugene created dozens of unique shoes and sneakers on the platform - for each of his insane outfits. Michael was known for his antics (urinating the guests of the club was common for him) and in 1996 was convicted for the murder of a drug dealer, whose body was dismembered and thrown into the Hudson in a TV box. In the documentary film Party Monster, Elig, talking about his lifestyle, boasts shoes on the work platform of Boris Zuborev: “These are my favorites! A year and a half I go to them. ”
“Club Kids brought shoes at six in the evening, and at ten they were already dancing in them,” says Boris. - It gave a good income - the cost of one pair was 300 − 500 dollars, which was almost equal to the monthly rent of the workshop.
We made these pairs, probably a thousand! Worked for wear, glued the platform from ten in the morning until ten in the evening. We rested a bit and worked again until four in the morning.
The rumor about the talents of the Belarusian masters has come to the elite of the fashion industry. They began to receive orders for the manufacture of shoes for photo shoots of leading glossy magazines, fashion shows and personal celebrity collections.
Victoria Beckham Tips
Currently, Boris Zuborev’s design shoes can be seen regularly in Vogue, V Magazine, Nylon magazines and on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week. Among the famous clients - Kate Moss, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Riana, as well as Gucci, Burberry, Prada, Atelier and other companies that hire Boris as the designer of the most daring, risky models. For example, the famous grougues - classic men's model shoes on a platform typical of a cedar or sneaker - Boris's invention. He performed the first pair (sample) for the main designer Prada. He began to appear in grougues at all sorts of shows and social events. Unusual shoes were a resounding success, and soon the fashion house created a whole collection based on a copy of Boris, running grougues for sale - for 800 dollars per pair.
It seems terribly unfair that all the laurels end up in the brand, not the author of the idea. But Boris Zuborev does not look offended:
- Just because it works in the fashion world. I make a design, it is considered, approved and given to sign a paper, where I waive all rights to this design. It’s necessary to devote a lot of time and energy to developing your own brand, to sit in China, to control production, and I have a wife, a child ... And it’s not mine - to work in an office.
For Madonna, the wizard created silver shoes, studded with metal spikes. For Rihanna - sneakers on clear plastic heels. David Beckham starred in their sneakers for a fashion magazine, and his wife Victoria sported a pair of shoes from Zuborev at the Gucci show in New York. Victoria Beckham liked the work of the master so much that as a sign of gratitude she left a tip in the amount of 500 dollars to Zuborev.
- I am not a big connoisseur of new names, - says Boris. - I recently made an order for Azilii Banks and already after the fact I learned that she is a famous rap singer, - I rather closely communicated with Carlos Leon, the father of Madonna’s daughter. He lived not far from our old workshop and often visited guests. Stars rarely work with us directly, send their stylists more often, and we discuss clients' wishes, I propose a design. The hot season for us begins on the eve of “Berning Men”. When Rolling Stone magazine was making material about the festival, I put a photo of a girl in my shoes on the cover. It was nice.
“It was a madhouse! But we worked, it is necessary to eat "
In addition to special orders, the masters are engaged in repairing shoes, and the prices they are the same as everywhere in the city, which is even strange when they are known in fashion circles.
- Who just does not come to us to make orders! - Boris smiles. - Gangsters, rappers, draddilera, hipsters ... Now the boy will come with dreadlocks, if you unwind them, stretch to the end of the quarter. He wants to attach 30-centimeter platforms to his boots. I am interested in working with such clients. Bushvik, of course, does not compare with the Lower East Side of the nineties (before the workshop was located there). Until 2000, it was a madhouse! Showdowns, shootouts, squats, punk rock concerts. Ordinary people did not go beyond Second Avenue - they knew it was dangerous. And we worked - it’s necessary to eat! We moved to Bushvik four years ago. We, like many other small business owners, have been forced out of the prices of rental properties. In the 1994 year, when we started, we paid for renting space in 100 square meters of 600 dollars per month. In 2013, the same room was rented for 4500 dollars per month. We are not supporters of price inflation, we work for clients of different incomes, so it was decided to move to Bushvik (a developing, bohemian, very recently very criminal area of Brooklyn. - AK). The rest followed, and now we are adjacent to the same tattoo parlor as on the East Side.
Affordable shoes can not only celebrities. Sneakers and sneakers are regularly brought to the workshop. In the course are paints, acids, spray, plastic, - everything that can change shoes beyond recognition.
The cost of upgrading, depending on the effort and materials involved, can be several hundred dollars. What can students afford? When it comes to gluing the 11-centimeter platform to conversions, the work will cost 120 dollars. Platforms are created manually, - layers are cut out, glued together. Everything about everything takes 3 − 4 hours. So the price is fair.
“I am pleased to do something for people who are“ in the subject line ”and appreciate my ideas and efforts,” says Boris. - The most fashionable nation now - the Japanese. And unfortunately, New York has become a collective farm, there are almost no bright individuals left, I don’t see cool people on the streets. Instead, they came to those whom I call the "punk rocker of the day." This concerns not only fashion, but also music. I created my best designs in 1992 — 1997, when life in the East Village was accessible to musicians, artists, designers, and we all learned something from each other. And then real estate prices soared and everyone went where they were. By the way, those of my designs were evaluated only in the two thousandth years, so I can say that I was ahead of my time. So it was, for example, with shoes on the platform without a heel (Boris calls them "Devil's hooves"), which we made for Lady Gaga and thanks to which fashion went on them. I came up with them in the mid-nineties. How did you come up with? Yes, I smoked something, that came up with the idea ...
Boris Zuborev and Evgeny Finkelberg create unique shoes not only for Lady Gaga, but also for punk rock stars and the hottest rappers in New York.
“In 2011, Mobb Deep shot a clip for Dead man's shoes with me in the lead role,” says Boris. - In the story, I help the gangsters hide the corpse in our workshop. Since this is a very famous group in the United States, after the release of the video they began to recognize me everywhere, I could not even go down the subway calmly.
Once they were the first in New York who modified sneakers and stuck platforms to sneakers. Now for each design of Boris Zuborev there are imitators who create dozens of fakes, sometimes in very cheap versions. We have to invent something new - detachable platforms, new textures, appliqués from shreds of bandanas, chinchilla fur. Styles are mixed together. Treads are made of shoes. Leather fringe is stuck on the sneakers.
Language does not turn to call these masters shoemakers. They are real shoe artists. In this case, the masters themselves wear good, but unremarkable shoes.
Boris explains it this way:
- Well, imagine, you are a baker and bake bread all day. Will you eat them? For a while, yes, and then satiety will come. You these rolls and at work will be enough. Same with me. I can afford any of the most expensive shoes, but I have so much of this good that I do not care. I calmly relate to the material. You know what really matters? ..
Boris puffs on his cigarette, looks at me with clear, smiling eyes:
- ... It is important to do something about what the rest will say - this is not and can not be!
