This crossover player is the hope of the classic menswear community, because he is not relying on classic menswear enthusiasts to do business, but doing business to attract more people to love classic menswear and leather shoes!
Coffee shop GentleMaker is definitely a breath of fresh air in Shanghai, let’s hear the story of the founder, Don.
Please introduce yourself.
I’m Don and I’m the owner of GentleMaker, a shoe care cafe in Shanghai.
Originally an engineering guy, after graduating from the UK with a master’s degree in 2015 and coming to Shanghai. I have worked in engineering, finance, commercial property and other fields.
Because of my love for gentleman culture and boutique coffee, I turned this love into a career.
I hear your girlfriend is also your partner. How did you meet?
She and I were former colleagues, I was in charge of commercial type of work, she was in charge of marketing type of work, as well as a freelance writer, I think she is a more spiritual person than I am, and loves literature.
Of course we all love coffee.
Where did the name Gentlemaker come from?
The name GentleMaker came when a friend of ours was Brain Storming with us. He and his wife are the masterminds of GR Studio, a design studio, and the designers of the space for our first shop.
At that time, I wanted to express that “I hope this brand can convey the social trend of being gentle and courteous, and use this brand to make the communication between people more friendly and elegant”, and when he blurted out the name GentleMaker, we all thought that was it.
Fell in love with coffee first, or shoes first?
I liked coffee first. When I was in primary school, we had instant coffee at home, and I loved it at that time.
Later, when I was studying at university in the UK, I had to go to a café every day to drink at least one cup , but I didn’t study a lot of boutique coffee at that time, so a cup of ordinary dark roasted Australian white was my favourite.
I fell in love with dress shoes later on when I was exposed to the gentry culture in the UK.
Since I was a child, I have always been fond of shoes. I had to wear school uniforms from primary school to high school, and the only choice left to me is the shoes, so I paid special attention to the beauty and cleanliness of the shoes.
What was the idea behind opening this coffee shop?
As I said before, the idea behind the GentleMaker brand is to “convey the social culture of gentleness and courtesy through the brand,” and the idea of opening this café is a bit more practical, which is to provide good coffee and a comfortable atmosphere, and to integrate the concept of gentleman shoe care into it, so that people can learn about the concepts related to leather shoe care, gentlemanly manners, and politeness and elegance in a comfortable environment on a daily basis.
What kind of chemistry do you think can happen between shoe shine and coffee?
I think people who like boutique coffee and people who like shoe care will have quite a lot in common: polite and kind, elegant and decent, good at finding the beauty in life, and passionate about what they do.
Customers who like shoe care have a high potential to like boutique coffee, and those who like boutique coffee are usually more interested in the beauty in their lives as well.
How did the customers in the shop react when they saw you polishing shoes?
This is funny really.
Some guests were so confused that they would explore around the shoe care bar to try and find out what this was for, and many speculated that this was a shoe customisation shop within a shop;
Some of the guests were surprised that they didn’t realise that shoe care could be put together with a coffee shop and that it looked magically good together;
Some of the guests were even a bit excited, those who had enjoyed the bar shoe care service in Japan before thought it was fantastic to have such an elegant shoe care bar in Shanghai.
A lot of people think that your coffee shop is a business for gentlemen’s wear enthusiasts, but you’re actually using the coffee shop to expose more people to gentlemen’s wear culture, right?
Yes. Our coffee shop does attract some very elegant and sassy gentry enthusiasts, but serves more customers who work and live in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Theatre students come here to study and discuss, freelancers to create, businessmen to negotiate, and coffee lovers to enjoy the coffee and afternoon.
I believe they slowly learnt about shoe care and would talk to me, ask about shoe care, buy some shoe care items to maintain their shoes, and of course there are many customers who put their shoes over here for care and repair.
Most of the customers who come over to have their shoes cared for are the original coffee drinkers.
What are the next plans, like which genres or brands to work with?
Next, we may hope to do some promotion of the shoe care service, so that more people will know about this service.
We also hope to set up the online service and shop as soon as possible, so that customers who are not in Shanghai can also experience the gentle service of GentleMaker’s shoe care technicians.
How soon can we try your coffee and shoe care services in other cities as well?
This is less confirmed, we need to develop it step by step, solidly.
Contact
Wechat: GentleMaker
Weibo: GentleMaker
Red: GentleMaker
Instgram: gentlemakershanghai
Address: GentleMaker Café, 748-3 Huashan Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, China
联系方式：[email protected]