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Capezio ShoesSalvatore Capezio was born on April 13, 1871 in Muro Lucano, Italy. Uninterested in following in his fathers footsteps as a construction engineer, he became an artist of his own right, a cobbler. In 1887, at the age of 17, he opened his shop on Broadway and 39th Street, diagonally across from the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. At the time, the Statue of Liberty was barely a year old and the sign above his door read: The Theatrical & Historical Shoemaker. He started out repairing theatrical shoes for the Met and his excellent craftsmanship and his easy-going personality made him a favorite among the dancers. After making an emergency pair of shoes for Jean De Reszke, Salvatore made the transition from cobbler to shoemaker. He had found that making dance shoes, pointe shoes in particular, was a challenging balance between delicate construction and complex engineering. Our dance family now includes ice skaters and to support them we established Skatewear by Capezio in 1998 with Olympic Gold Medallist Tara Lipinski as our spokes model. In the same year, we also established Dancesport by Capezio to welcome the 2000 Olympics where ballroom dancing, the newest Olympic exhibition sport, will be in the limelight. We are also an official sponsor of Dancesport Championship Limited (DCL). Capezio products remain in the forefront in quality and in technological advances with innovations like the split-sole, the stretch-insert, the Dansneaker® and the Tapsneaker. In addition, we have established partnerships with some of the brightest young stars and with some of the hottest Broadway shows. Over 100 years after Salvatore fixed a pair of shoes for the Met, Capezio's SMU Theatrical Department is still hand crafting footwear for many shows and company's including the casts of The Lion King and Cats and for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney World and Disney Land.
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