Outside Out

In many a high-class factory producing handmade shoes there are two kinds of workers: high bench and low bench. A shoemaker who has learned to work at a low bench will grumble if he has to use a high one, and vice versa. But their work is the same. It consists of sewing the soles of shoes to the upper leather while the shoes are inside out, then turning them right side out. In operation last week in a long neat shoe factory in Manhattan was a new process which gave high & low bench workers alike something entirely different to do, promised to revolutionize present methods of making shoes.

The factory was Delman, Inc. Herman Delman has for a decade made high-price shoes for such notables as Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury, Mrs. Harrison Williams, many a Brokaw, Auchincloss and Gould. He produces 2,500 pairs a week, makes shoes studded with precious stones, piped with gold and silver, painted with aluminum to shine in the dark. His prices begin at $14.75, sometimes reach $500. Last year when he gave up his retail store on Madison Avenue and confined himself to manufacturing, Saks Fifth Avenue signed a contract for an exclusive agency in Manhattan. Outside Manhattan, Delman shoes are sold in 30 cities through such agencies as Sommer & Kaufmann of San Francisco, Neiman-Marcus Co. of Dallas, C. Crawford Hollidge of Boston.

At Mr. Delman's offices last summer appeared one Fiorentino ("Fred") Maccarone. Mr. Delman (whose name was Nudelman before he dropped the "Nu") had heard of Mr. Maccarone as the inventor of a detachable heel-lift for women's shoes. Mr. Maccarone now had some ideas about soles. Would Mr. Delman care to feed and support him and give him a shop to work in while he developed these ideas into a process? Mr. Delman would. So Fred Maccarone got a low bench and went to work. For months his production was nil. Mr. Delman was on the verge of firing him when one day he announced that the process was finished. What Fred Maccarone had was a better, cheaper and easier method of making shoes by hand. The old process of making them on the wrong side and turning them, no matter how carefully done, pulled the fabric & leather, necessitated a tedious period of reshaping. By Mr. Maccarone's process the shoes are made right side out. A single flexible sole is used which may be sewed or sealed (with cement) to the upper leather with absolute perfection in fitting. Net result is that much time is saved, and a series of difficult operations reduced to a minimum. Another method called the Sbicca process, perfected in 1931, is similar in principle but involves extra cutting operations. Mr. Delman promptly christened the process "Delmac," and last week set up the Delmac Corp. to license it to shoe manufacturers. He has already started producing Delmac shoes in his own factory. And since Mr. Maccarone had taken out patents on his idea as far back as 1926, the Delmac Corp. started a patent-infringement suit against a prominent retailer, I. Miller & Sons, for selling shoes made by the Sbicca process. Next to shoemaking, Mr. Maccarone's hobby is cornet-playing. He learned both in Paternopoli, near Naples, where he was born 44 years ago. He came to the U. S. at 17 to earn his living as a musician, but turned shoemaker. At 23 he had his own factory in Brooklyn, then went to Rochester where his inventing began. The happiest period of his life, he says, was during the War when he was in an Army Band and could play his cornet all he liked.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.