Venus Shoes Mumbai

You’ll find us in Nagpada, inside the Devji Dharsi Building on 4th Peer Khan Street. We’re in Room No. 13, which is on the fourth floor. It’s an old building, very close to the J. J. Flyover, so you can always hear the rumble of the cars and bikes going over. We make shoes here. It’s a small space, but we’ve managed to fit everything we need into it. The smell of leather and glue is pretty strong when you first walk in, but you stop noticing it after five minutes. We spend a lot of time at our benches, cutting leather and stitching soles. It’s manual work. Our hands are usually stained with dye or polish by the end of the day. Mumbai is humid, so we keep the windows open, but that just lets in the city noise. We aren't a big factory; it’s more like a workshop where we take our time. Sometimes we sit on the floor to work if the benches are full. We know the other people in the building, and everyone helps each other out when the lift breaks down, which happens more often than we’d like. It’s a climb up to the fourth floor, but it’s worth it for the view of the street. We just keep making shoes, one pair at a time, for people who know where to look for us. We've been here for years, through the rain and the heat, just doing the work.