Especially during recession, shoe-repair business booms

Late last week, Sung Kim sat on a low chair and used a box cutter to deftly trim a leather insole he had previously glued to a woman's rope sandal. Satisfied with the job, he put the sandal and its mate on a crowded shelf behind him. Two down. Dozens - maybe hundreds - more to go.

With shoes, boots and bags stacked on shelves and in plastic bins behind the glass counter, there is no recession at Kim's shop, Rustic Hills Shoe Repair.

"Bad economy makes a good economy for me," Kim said. "I shouldn't say that. People will be mad at me."

Not likely. For 26 years, Kim has put new soles and heels on boots and dress shoes, fixed broken high heels, dyed leather, sewn new zippers into leather coats and patched handbags in Rustic Hills North Shopping Center. Through craftsmanship and prices that often seem ridiculously low, he has built a loyal clientele who drive to this dying shopping center so Kim can stitch and glue new life into worn-out items.

"A lot of his older customers won't even talk to me," said Terry Love, Kim's assistant for four years. "They want to talk to him."

Kim said he's never lacked for customers, but the past year has been especially busy, as people bring in shoes or bags for repair that they may have thrown out in better times.

Kim said if people buy quality shoes and boots, there is no reason they can't be resoled three or four times.

Besides the recession, Kim is benefiting from the renewed popularity in high heels in women's fashions. Each snapped-off heel is a $6 to $10 repair, and replacing those little rubber pads at the business end of a spiked heel is $6.

"When I first started, there were lots of high heels," he said. "Then, 10 or 15 years later, everyone wore flat shoes. High heels started coming back five or six years ago, and now I do as much as when I started. More work for me."

On Tuesday morning, Dalene Popa and daughter Hannah, 11, picked up the sandals Kim fixed last week. Although Popa's sandals - and a sandal Kim fixed for her daughter - weren't expensive, the ladies liked them and saw no reason to spend money on new ones.

Besides, Popa said, she knew they would be fixed good as new, since Kim has repaired purses for her in the past.

"He does good work," she said.

Kim wasn't born into the cobbler trade. In his native South Korea, he worked for a shipping company that loaded U.S. military supplies into the holds of ships, a job that sent him to South Vietnam from 1967 to 1970. In 1973, Kim and his wife moved to Colorado Springs at the invitation of his wife's sister, who had married an American GI.

He initially worked for a moving company, then joined a manufacturing firm, where he worked for 10 years as a welder. In 1983, he was laid off and discovered that the original owner of Rustic Hills Shoe Repair wanted out, so he bought the shop, even though he'd never sewn a stitch or glued a sole.

Along with supplying some very old, very sturdy shoe-repair equipment - including one complex, 16-foot-long piece by Landis dating to 1930 - the old owner agreed to give Kim a week's instruction on repairing shoes. Then he was on his own.

"I had a hard time for about six months. I didn't have time to go to classes," Kim said. "I was so worried. But I lasted 26 years."

Now 76, Kim has worked a backbreaking schedule during those 26 years. He comes in at 5 a.m. every morning, six days a week. Before the sun rises, he starts on the sewing jobs - his least-favorite work. Besides the normal rips, tears and zippers, Kim has used his industrial sewing machine to repair a trampoline bed and make a boat cover.

"I try to take in anything," he said.

As the morning progresses, he turns his attention to men's shoes and boots. In the afternoon, he repairs women's shoes. He closes the shop doors at 6 p.m., ending a 13-hour day amid the heady smell of leather, Jet Set glue and, vaguely, feet.

There may be no recession at Rustic Hills Shoe Repair, but that doesn't mean "Mr. Kim," as everyone calls him, is living on Easy Street.

"I get tired sometimes. I'll keep going, maybe a few more years," he said, flashing a shy smile.

DETAILS

Rustic Hills Shoe Repair, 3919 Palmer Park Blvd., is open Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Typical charges for typical jobs: half soles and heels on boots, $38; half soles and heels on men's dress shoes, $35; new heels on women's high-heeled shoes, $6 to $10; new zippers in leather or fabric coats, $30; sewing minor tears on shoes, $3 to $4.