Labour of love for Toronto shoe entrepreneur - footwearbiz: Leading si

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Labour of love for Toronto shoe entrepreneur

23/04/2014
Toronto-based artisan shoemaker Peter Feeney spent four years preparing to launch his business this year and has said he believes it will take him a further five years to turn a profit. “It can’t just be a fad,” he said of entrepreneurship in a recent conversation with a local newspaper. “[You have to] make sure you’re choosing something you’re really passionate about because you’ll be spending all your time on it, even when you don’t want to do it.”

Mr Feeney spent years wondering if he should continue in a career in film production and just keep shoes as a hobby. Even after he had spent a period of time in Florence, learning Italian and artisan shoemaking from a local producer, he remained unsure if he could make it work.

But in 2014, he finally gave up the job in film and opened a workshop in Toronto’s Sherbourne Street, specialising in men’s custom made shoes, for which he is charging around $1,000 per pair. Each pair takes him around 40 hours to make and he insists that if his clients take care of the footwear, it will last a lifetime.


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