It's not too often you run into a shoe cobbler while taking a walk through Chicago.
And if you walk too fast or aren't paying attention you might miss one of the city's newest and growing shops: Mend Atelier in the West Loop.
"We specialize in repairing and restoring, and I think probably what we're best suited right now is repairing and restoring designer bags, but we're also really good at repairing and restoring shoes," said Mend Atelier owner Jorge Mancilla.
Mancilla is a craftsman who's been restoring and repairing leather goods, shoes and designer bags for nearly a dozen years. He opened Mend Atelier at 215 N. Aberdeen St. in August of 2024, after apprenticing at a shop in the Gold Coast for 11 years.
For Mancilla, there's rarely a piece he can't repair or restore, and he goes to extra mile to make any piece or item possible.
Carolina Garibay
"We're always like on the hunt for if we want to find the hardware that matches a vintage Coach, or a vintage Louis Vuitton, or a vintage Gucci," he said. "We source a lot of our leathers from a couple of leather suppliers that deal with the tanneries in Italy and in Spain."
Mancilla said it all comes down to the simple fact that he and his team genuinely care about their customers' items.
"And I don't just mean care just the way you handle the item, but actually caring to do a good job and doing the best you can, but also caring to learn," he said.
It's an approach Mancilla said he thinks sets him apart from other repair shops.
Carolina Garibay
Actually, he said there are a few things he thinks Mend Atelier does a bit differently, a big one being the way the space is designed.
"One of the ways most repair shops are traditionally set up is there's a front area counter with some retail stuff, and then to me, what is the magic of the trade, is always hidden in the back," he said. "So, I wanted to bring it to the front. I wanted to showcase it. I wanted to put it on a stage."
He said the shop is almost like an open-concept kitchen, with machines and workspaces out in the open. Mancilla said the hope is that being able to see the behind the scenes will draw more people to the trade, especially younger generations.
"One of the ideas that I had, the visions that I had, was hoping that this place would be filled with younger people who were artists who were on a on their path, and maybe they saw value in a trade," Mancilla said.
Carolina Garibay
He said his employees are all young designers whose personal interests overlap with the work they do at Mend Atelier. He said he hopes employing and teaching young artists might help address the decline in shoe repair shops over the past several years while also fostering people's genuine interest in learning the trade.
"I would love to be able to one day expand the shop," he said. "Expand in a way where we are also teaching and training and exposing people to the idea that a trade is a very viable sustainable career choice and path."
