Preserving a tradition

Elia Powers

When Hollywood celebrities want to buy shoes that fit, they turn to

Jack Kazanchyan.

The Armenian-born man has been in the custom-shoe business for 36

years and operates Jack #1, a shop on Balboa Peninsula.

“He’s a quintessential shoemaker,” said Mitzi Wells, a Newport

Beach resident who recently visited his shop. “The workmanship is

amazing. Here’s a guy who still takes the time to make shoes by hand.

“He’s from a time gone by.”

Kazanchyan, 50, still speaks with a heavy accent. His parents

moved to what is now Armenia -- where he was born -- in 1948,

emigrating from what is now Israel.

At 14, Kazanchyan learned how to make custom shoes by hand, using

high-end leather products. When he joined the Soviet Armenian army in

the mid-1970s, he was assigned to make shoes for soldiers and

officers in the service.

“I was the only one who knew how to do it,” Kazanchyan said.

Twenty-five years ago, he immigrated to Southern California and

began working for shoemaker Pasquale Di Fabrizio, who was well known

in Hollywood circles. Kazanchyan and his cousin, Andre Rostomyan,

went to work in Di Fabrizio’s Los Angeles shop.

For years they worked together, building up a client list and

impressing the Hollywood A-listers with $800 patches of alligator

skin. Kazanchyan said many movies from that era featured shoes made

from Di Fabrizio’s store.

Actors and actresses would come into the shop for a fitting, or an

employee would make a house call.

Rostomyan and Kazanchyan eventually went off on their own, opening

the Andre #1 shop in Los Angeles. Kazanchyan moved to Orange County

and owned a store on Riverside Drive in Newport Beach for about 10

years; he eventually sold that store.

A number of Hollywood celebrities were retiring in Newport Beach

and continued to be patrons at Kazanchyan’s store.

Gary Kazanchyan, Jack’s son, said the individualized attention

kept customers coming back. Someone in the shop would take a

measurement of a person’s foot and then use a mold to custom-fit the

shoe.

“No one does that anymore,” Gary Kazanchyan said. “We do it the

way it was done 50 years back. It’s good to be different.”

Kiss, Prince and Neil Diamond have been among regular clients over

the years. Jack Kazanchyan has kept an album of photos from the

1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s that show the stars with their shoes. He also

sells to Middle Eastern royalty.

Most of his leather comes from shops in Italy, Jack Kazanchyan

said. Shoes start at about $800, and ankle-high ones can begin at

$1,200.

Gary Kazanchyan runs the operation in Los Angeles, which handles

about 80% of the celebrity requests. When Rostomyan died about 3 1/2

years ago, Jack Kazanchyan momentarily thought about shutting down

operations.

But he was too much a fan of tradition. So the stores remain.

“I don’t like to change the name,” Jack Kazanchyan said. “I like

keeping things the way they were.”

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