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I have so many ways to start this report that I don't know which one to choose.

I could, for example, do it with these anonymous verses, a version of the mythical 'From Santurce to Bilbao', which, framed,

Gloria

and

Estrella Castellano

show me in their store at 57 Lope de Rueda in Madrid: "From Velázquez to Goya / I come all over Serrano / With the Levis raised / Wearing the Castellanos / I come quickly and running / Because the Lacoste oppresses me / I'm shouting down the street: / There is no one more posh than me.

Or maybe I could start by telling the story of that woman in her 60s who walks into the store and, almost with tears in her eyes, says: "When I was young, my mother bought me

Castellano shoes.

But she couldn't afford to buy me." the

cube,

so I came to buy it myself now.

Or perhaps I could make a list of the

bucket bags

in the world: the 'Ophidia' by

Gucci,

the 'Épure' by

Longchamp,

the 'Pebble' by

Loewe,

the 'Tropicalia' or the 'Cumara' by

Marni... .which

, however, do not occupy the place in the Spanish collective imagination of the

Castellano cube,

created in 1961

by

Lorenzo Márquez

and which at the end of the 70s was the emblem of all the 'good girls' of Spain.

It was usually worn in

Corinthian red,

with a silver metal bit decoration and a handkerchief tied to the handle.

Finally, a good start for this report could have been the

complaint

that the aforementioned Lorenzo Márquez used to express to Gloria, his wife, as the Castellano brand became more and more famous: "They will never know me by my name , even though I invented it."

Because yes, the shoes have always been called Castellano, not Márquez, what can you do.

The traditional Castilian leather bucket.

With a bite.

Shoulder strap handle.

The inner lining is a removable cloth bagLG

The company that continues to manufacture 63 years later the unmistakable

Kiowa moccasins

and those instantly identifiable bags (as well as belts, purses, hair accessories and many other models of shoes and bags) is called

LG,

initials of Lorenzo and Gloria, and has In Madrid, a store in Hermosilla and another in Lope de Rueda, where we do the interview.

A

poorly resolved lawsuit

back in the 70s ended up taking away the Castellano brand for their shoes (it is exploited by another company), a paradox that gives rise to many confusions among the public.

The rest of the products, including the cube, do retain the Castellano surname (to prevent you from getting confused too, the website of the company we are talking about here is castellanolga.com).

Journey to the 'guts' of Castellano

The

store

is a huge place that immediately sends you back in time, with its green and gray checkered carpet floor and its full wooden and glass display cases.

In the background, a staircase presided over by a deer's head leads to a labyrinthine basement where the warehouse

, Administration and

workshop

are located

.

In the latter, a man on a Lilliputian chair (the most functional in shoemaking), works on a sole.

Because although shoes have been manufactured industrially since 1968 - "we had no choice, there was a waiting list of up to three months, people came and said 'Gloria, give me a 40:' What color? Whatever you have " -,

many are finished by hand,

or made

to measure,

entirely by

hand

"because you don't know how many complicated feet there are in the world," Estrella Castellano explains to me during the visit to the company's guts.

In the workshop, Gloria and Estrella with a version of the cube, in blue and with a zipper. PHOTO: ÁNGEL NAVARRETE

Although the story does not begin in this kind of shoemaking womb, but on Princesa Street.

The account in the first person, a luxury,

Gloria Castellano,

83 years old, still active, "granddaughter of a shoemaker, daughter of a shoemaker and wife of a shoemaker," she boasts.

With her niece

Estrella Castellano

(59 years old), her brother and her cousin, they form the

family team

that supports a company that flew very high during the 70s and 80s and that today faces immense challenges, although It also sees opportunities.

After all, aren't we in the new

golden age of craftsmanship,

of its revaluation thanks to Haute Couture, of the demonization of 'fast fashion' in favor of quality, durable fashion?

"All that is very good," says Estrella Castellano, "but I ask you a question: do you know anyone who wants

to be a shoemaker?

Don't you? That is the

problem with crafts,

at least in Spain, which is devalued. "You can find a shoemaker who knows how to put on a sole, but not assemble the shoe, sew, put on the sole, the heel and finish, that no longer exists," he laments.

For this reason, she explains, the future of her own company is complicated: "Our system of making shoes is very artisanal and without artisans we cannot make shoes."

From Plaza de España to Hermosilla and back

We fly to the past to better understand this present.

"The business was born when in

1934

my grandfather,

Fernando Castellano,

decided to establish himself in the Plaza de España."

Gloria's father was the one who started making custom shoes, beyond repairing them, and the business worked.

But at a certain point the City Council decided to carry out works in Princesa and they left their area without traffic, which hurt the business, so in

1944

they opened the

Hermosilla store-workshop.

We must remember that at that time, say aunt and niece,

"all shoes were made to measure.

There was no 'stock'."

With the company going from strength to strength, in 1954 a young man, Lorenzo Márquez,

started working there,

"and the following year I became his girlfriend, what are we going to do to him," jokes the matriarch.

"We got married and settled in the house in Plaza de España, which had been closed for years. That was where we started our own business."

Two years earlier, with an extraordinary business vision, Lorenzo had invented the cube and created the moccasin that would make him famous "at a time when there

were only lace-up shoes.

And a hunger for novelties."

Demand skyrocketed.

"On April 15, 1963,

my wedding day,

I had to make

two cubes

in the morning

before going to church,"

says Gloria, who was a

saddler,

a job, they explain, that has always been fundamentally feminine, "because it allowed work from home and earn a very decent income".

The shoes and bags that Gloria Castellano has sewn are countless, but some have left an indelible mark, especially in her own memory: «One shoe got stained and Lorenzo got very angry with me, so he cut off some tabs and told me: 'a see what you invent with them.'

What she invented was a moccasin with fringes that became a success.

How not to remember.

Each season more and more models were added to the catalogue.

"For example, a

cube that had six holes

in the front was very famous. But the pens kept coming out, and we had to stop making them," remember the aunt and niece.

The golden age of the cube

Less than two decades later,

Castellano was everywhere

just by word of mouth.

"In the 80s there was a lot of expansion, there were LG stores throughout Spain, dedicated only to our products."

They were not their own, but rather those of third parties, who bought the products from them to sell them.

International expansion was attempted, but it did not work.

But the 90s arrived and with them, 'fast fashion'.

The supply multiplied and purchasing patterns changed.

"Ours," Estrella Castellano confides to us, "is a

family of workers.

And I think we lacked

business training."

Little by little, the brand's stores throughout the country began to disappear "because the owners retired."

Today there is one left in

Gijón,

which was initially its own store and which was finally bought by the people who worked there.

A future for the past

The two Madrid ones also lasted.

They continue to defend a

philosophy of work

and

product

that,

surprise,

begins to gain value again.

"For example, there is something that only we do. You buy this moccasin and then you tell me: I want a

bow

, I want

tassels

, I want a silver, or gold bit... And we do that in a while. In Hermosilla I do too I sew that finished."

Another important aspect is

after-sales service:

"In our company it is essential. The customer trusts you, you are giving them a guarantee that they will have that shoe for a long time" [just at that moment, in fact, a woman enters the store. repair a shoe and we hear her say, "Uh, this shoe is at least 25 years old."

Not even on purpose!].

And that's not to mention that man who comes "and asks you for the same shoe he bought 30 years ago."

Of course, all of the above can sustain the company for a long time, but without generational replacement of the clientele... it will be difficult.

"There is a

new type of customer

that I love," says Estrella Castellano: "the

'daughters of'.

When they tell their mothers that they want a moccasin, they tell them 'no, no, you're not going to buy it in anywhere...' And they bring them here."

Is there a profile?

Of course;

what Estrella calls

"a 'nice' middle class."

In the end, she says, the young people attracted by LG brand products "are those girls and boys who continue to perpetuate the way of dressing of what we used to call 'posh'."

It is already known: from Velázquez to Goya they go all over Serrano...

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