Shoe shop tiptoes out after 76 years in city

Paul Gubb was about 17 when his father took him out of school and told him he would be working in the family’s women’s shoe shop.

The young rugby lad had spent the years prior at a all-boys’ boarding school.

‘‘It was a whole different thing,’’ he says. While he would see his friends heading out and about, his daily routine would be to open the shop, vacuum, then dust the windows and the stock with a feather duster.

But 53 years and five relocations later, Gubb has remained at the shoe shop, which has become an institution inWellington. Now it was time ‘‘to pull up stumps’’.

His dad, Laurie Gubb, opened the shop in 1946, selling women’s footwear at 143 Manners St, with the help of a rehabilitation loan after returning from WorldWar II.

‘‘Arts were big at the time,’’ Gubb said, and the business soon became part-ballet shop, not long after opening.

Laurie ran it with his wife Grace for more than 25 years before Gubb took over in 1970, after leaving Nelson College years before to help out at the shop.

Gubb soon found himself in front of ‘‘ballet mums’’ fitting pointe shoes, gaining a reputation, only after fibbing he had completed a course at a prestigious London ballet shoe manufacturer.

‘‘The furthest I’ve been is Picton,’’ he laughs, but he was still sought after, he says. ‘‘I was a good fitter of pointe shoes.’’

Over the years, the shop moved to the Oaks building, James Smith building and back to Manners St, before it ended up in its current location, ‘‘off the beaten track’’ for the past 15 years, Gubb says.

Gubb’s wife Julie joined in the 1980s, and it was at Gubb’s that she bought her first ever cloak shoes for work. The shoe display table, from which Julie recalls buying the red cloak shoes, remains in the shop.

While they watched the surrounding city change over time, with big fast fashion brands popping up, they stayed true to what they’ve always known.

‘‘It’s just an old-fashioned shop, but that’s not bad,’’ Gubb says.

Over the years, the store became more than just a shoe shop, but also a gathering place – particularly after a late night close on a Friday.

They had jazz bands in, people coming after work, ‘‘ we had some good parties out the back of the shop’’, Gubb says.

When asked about their bestsellers, Gubb talks about various ‘‘little plain cloak shoes’’ over the years but then delves into a story, which he says is ‘‘ a bit risqué’’.

Amanufacturer approached him one evening over some drinks, saying he had leopard and tiger skin to sell. Gubb said he’d ‘‘take the whole lot’’ and began to make fourinch high heels, mostly for people in the transgender community, including renowned Wellington drag queen Carmen Rupe.

‘‘They actually looked bloody classy,’’ Gubb says and was like a ‘‘national uniform’’, with people from outside the city seeking the tailormade animal print heels.

It hadn’t been all smooth sailing though, and at times, an empty shoebox was a punching bag in the backroom before Gubb would go back out to the shop front with a smile.

But the last decade had been different, the