Story and Multimedia by Kalie Wooden
Photos by Marcie Giovannoni
Every type and size of hat lines the walls of a third-generation haberdasher store. The preserved machinery of a letterpress churns and stamps as it prints out custom stationery. One-of-a-kind custom shoes sit on shelves of a father and son’s home business. Centuries ago, these stores and their wares were an everyday part of living. Through generations of family-owned businesses, local craftsmen work hard to preserve the custom nature of their craft among a world of impersonal, mass-produced products.
A Family of Haberdashery
After celebrating ninety years of business in 2011, John Helmer III reminisces about his childhood working in his family’s haberdashery. From bowler hats to classic top hats, the shelves are stuffed with every style. A rainbow of ties, men’s accessories, and the occasional women’s hat take up every nook and cranny of the newly remodeled shop. In 1921, Helmer’s grandfather emigrated from Sweden and worked as a valet for wealthy men—back in the days when one day required multiple wardrobe changes.
Before the 1600s, the term “haberdasher” meant a merchant who sold cloth and fabric. It has since evolved to identify a business of men’s accessories, which in the early twentieth century was usually a hat.
“Hats used to be one of the most common accessories, like wearing shoes. It was just an everyday part of being dressed,” Helmer explains.
John Helmer Haberdasher has been in the same location on SW Broadway in Portland, Oregon, since 1927. In 1956, the store expanded into the space next door. When Helmer was in high school in the seventies, he worked there with his dad. “I just kind of grew up with the store and fell into it,” Helmer says. As of now, his three kids, all in their late teens and early twenties, have yet to show an interest in the store.
“They didn’t grow up in the business as much as I did,” Helmer says. “When I was growing up, it was a much younger clientele and it was easier to be involved.”
Helmer still manages to maintain a family-oriented feel to the business while keeping up with the times. They have an extensive website that makes up twenty percent of the business. While their sales decreased during the recession, one of the benefits of a long-standing business is the lack of severe spikes in sales. Helmer says headwear has also been growing increasingly popular, and people will still spend on smaller accessory items during hard times.
Some of the store’s items are thought to be pointless accessories of an older, more traditional time of dress. But those items draw in numerous theater buffs and television shows that are filmed in Portland, such as TNT’s Leverage, which buys items for authentic costuming. Despite the store’s contrast to today’s casual styles, John Helmer Haberdasher has become a staple for an authentic, family-owned business that’s lasted through the years in Portland.
“We always try to maintain that old-fashioned appeal,” Helmer says. “All of the time people are just so happy we are here and thanking us for being here.”
John Helmer Haberdasher still keeps relatively short hours as well. The store closes at 6 p.m. on weekdays and is closed on Sundays—a rarity with today’s long mall hours. Working retail can be grueling, and staying open late and on Sundays just isn’t worth it, Helmer says. The store’s hours bring back memories of a more traditional, slower-paced world, and can also make working in retail more enjoyable. “Customers are generally up and ready to buy something when they come in, and we get a broad social and economic range of customers, so that makes it a fun business to be in.”
The days of custom hat sizing and suspenders continue on at John Helmer Haberdasher, where craftsmanship and family dynamics outweigh the long hours and mass-produced goods of today’s consumer market.
Letterpress: A Lifelong Hobby
Old posters line the walls, stacks of stationary sit in corners, and the lacquered smell of ink consumes the air. Large black machines and metal cartridges fill the room. “If you walked into any print shop in the early 20th century, it would have looked like this,” says Bob Giles, owner of BnS Letterpress printing company.
Giles started his small company when he retired in 2003 after years of working in the print industry as a third-generation printer. Giles’s grandfather was a linotype assembly worker in South Dakota, and Giles’s father worked in the printing industry for over thirty years.
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever known. I started folding newspapers for my grandpa when I was eight years old,” he says. “Printing is in my blood.”
Out of high school in 1962, Giles started as a journeyman at a print shop for the Gazette-Timesin Corvallis, Oregon. Early in his career, a new type of printing process called offset came along, and Giles adapted to stay in the industry. Throughout his career as a print craftsman, he worked for several local print companies, including the Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene.
“When I retired, I wanted to go back to my roots and the old way of printing with a letterpress ‘cause it’s more fun,” Giles says.
In his shop located in a separate building off the back of his home, Giles has three letterpress machines, a Ludlow typecasting machine, and one 1948 linotype machine that he saved from a scrap metal yard. Although he does some printing for business, most of it is a personal hobby.
“I can pick up any kind of piece that’s printed and tell whether it’s offset or letterpress,” Giles says, who strives to maintain an authentic feel to his printing products. Many modern stationery companies portray imprinted work as the higher quality option reminiscent of traditional stationery, but Giles sets the record straight.
“It’s kind of funny because in the old days if you printed something like that you would get fired, if you smashed the paper in like that,” he says. Imprinting the letters on to the paper to create an indented or engraved look actually deteriorates parts of the original printing press.
“Nowadays everyone is striving for that look and they think that’s the way it was, but back then people had more respect for the quality of the paper and the press machine.”
Many aspects of the original Gutenberg printing press have changed since the mid 15th century, but Giles remains a part of a small group of 150 printers in the United States who stay in touch and share the old craft with one another. In between the occasional commercial project, Giles can usually be found printing quotes and sayings for fun with his granddaughter.
Modern Cobblers
Midnight discussions in the shop downstairs, continuous access to the creative process, and a never-ending flow of inspiration—these are just some of the luxuries of working in a home-based family business.
Whether a customer has wide or narrow feet, two different sizes, or whatever specific work is necessary, the father-son duo at Babu Shoes make a conscious effort to provide shoes currently not available in the mass-produced market. While there are several custom cobblers in the state of Oregon, most of them only offer high-end dress shoes. Daniel Walling leans against the counter, eager to explain how he and his dad are trying to change the local shoe industry.
“I came on board with the business to help my dad achieve his dream,” Daniel Walling says. “He’s deeply passionate about shoemaking and wants to provide a type of footwear that people have never experienced before.”
When his dad Bob Walling started working in the shoe industry, he was involved in everything from leather Italian dress shoes to moccasins in Hawaii. Eventually he became tired of the business and wanted to create a process where he could directly oversee the quality of his shoes, and create something with a different aesthetic using local materials. It took around two years to perfect their technique and training, and then in 2008 the Wallings started selling their shoes at the Holiday Market in Eugene.
“Customer response to the shoes has been infinitely more than we thought it would be. After our first show in 2008 we have had a six month waiting list on custom work,” Daniel Walling says.
Currently the Wallings are trying to achieve a balance between custom work and a ready-made product available in the average middle-class price range.
Daniel Walling has been crafting his whole life, and being part of his dad’s shoe business was just another way to do that. “The first question I would always ask myself was could I make this? And the answer was usually yes.”
While he had some reservations about working closely with his father, Daniel Walling says it’s been easier than he thought it would be. “My dad is a really easy person to work with,” he says. “We can jump into the creative process whenever inspiration strikes and that’s the kind of advantage handmade crafters have.”
While Babu Shoes has taken a different approach to traditional cobblers, BnS Letterpress and John Helmer Haberdasher strive to preserve the authentic nature of their craft. But keeping up with the times is still a goal for many local craftsmen in order to stay afloat as a business. The words haberdasher, letterpress, and cobbler may be old-world nouns, but their crafts still manage to thrive through the powerful will of family generations.
