In the 1906 census, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska had a population of 1476, including seven shoemakers and seventy-two carpenters. A hundred years later, the commune itself had over 650 footwear businesses, and according to a "Polityka" report, one in five pairs of Polish shoes came from the vicinity of this town. Between these two numbers lies a whole history: the Bernardine monastery and indulgence trade, the railway from 1884, a guild organization from 1885, over a thousand cottage workshops at a time when the state did not want private craftsmanship, two factories founded in the same year 1964 — Stanisław Ryłka's in Kalwaria and Stanisław Żmija's in Stanisław Dolny — and a Chinese container that, after 1989, rolled into all of this like a battering ram.
I. FIRST THERE WAS THE INDULGENCE. LEATHER CAME LAST
Let's start by correcting a legend. Kalwaria was not always a shoemakers' town — it wasn't even always a town. It was a religious idea that only later developed an economy.
In 1600, Kraków voivode and senator Mikołaj Zebrzydowski began the construction of a hermitage on Mount Żar – the Church of the Crucifixion and the Holy Sepulchre. He handed it over to the Bernardines and committed to building a monastery; the foundation took place in 1602, and construction was carried out from 1604–1609. In 1605, Jan Zebrzydowski brought a privilege of plenary indulgences for pilgrims, and in 1641, an image of the Mother of God was brought from nearby Paszkówka, initiating the local Marian cult. The entire complex – forty-one chapels, churches, and bridges scattered along the paths – was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.
The town was established as a base for pilgrims. Nowy Zebrzydów was intended to provide food and shelter for pilgrims; the first location and town rights were granted in 1617, the second in 1640, the third in 1715, after a fire that consumed most of the wooden buildings. In the mid-17th century, about five hundred people lived here, earning a living from farming, food and souvenir production, and indulgence trade. It was from this trade — not from guild tradition, not from noble patronage — that regular fairs and craftsmanship emerged.
This craft was carpentry. In the 18th century, over forty carpentry workshops operated in Kalwaria, supplying furniture primarily to the wealthy burghers of Krakow. The Kalwaria guild dates its first records of carpenters to 1786. Shoemakers in this picture are marginal: individual people who repaired pilgrims' shoes and sold a pair or two at the fair.
II. GUILD, RAILWAY, AND SEVEN SHOEMAKERS
Galician autonomy after 1860 gave the town momentum, and two events provided it with infrastructure. In 1884, the railway reached Kalwaria. A year later, in 1885, a guild organization was established in the town, which operates to this day. The documents are precise: the first entry in the membership book of the Craftsmen's Association in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is dated December 15, 1885, and the entry in the court register is February 21, 1887. Around 1890, the town received its current name.
Then came the school. The national carpentry school, famous throughout Poland, is dated inconsistently in Kalwaria sources: the guild states 1887, the official history of the town — 1897. The discrepancy is worth noting: the history of local craftsmanship is sometimes less well documented here than the history of the monastery. In 1898, the "Sokół" nest was established, and in 1914, the first furniture fairs were organized — held, with interruptions, to this day.
And only now, the census. In 1906, the town had 1476 inhabitants, including 360 "industrialists": 179 traders and merchants, 72 carpenters, 24 butchers, 10 bakers, 10 blacksmiths, 7 shoemakers, 7 tailors, 6 millers, 4 wheelwrights, and 3 joiners. Seven shoemakers. That was the size of the "basin" when its true history began. Local promotion today speaks of over four hundred years of shoemaking tradition — the 1906 census suggests treating this number cautiously and looking for the boom elsewhere, in the 20th century.
In the Second Polish Republic, footwear in Poland was primarily handmade. In 1929, craftsmen's cards issued to shoemakers constituted 18.3 percent of all such cards — corresponding to 36,197 craft workshops in the country. From the partitioners, as one industry researcher wrote, an "shoemaking desert" was inherited: a few larger factories in Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, and Greater Poland, the rest was done by workshops. Kalwaria saw its first Kalwaria Fairs in 1930, the "Stolarz" Carpentry Cooperative in 1935, and in 1939 — the House of Crafts at Mickiewicza Street 2, a building known as "Okrąglak." A plaque on it reads: "For the benefit of Crafts of the City and Countryside. Built in 1939." In the same year, on September 4, the Germans entered the city.
III. SHOE STEP BY STEP: ANATOMY OF A SMALL WORKSHOP
A shoemaking hub is not a metaphor, but a specific number of operations performed in a basement or on the ground floor of a house. The terminology below is from vocational textbooks — names of parts and actions, not marketing jargon.
- Last. The form on which a shoe is built. It establishes the instep, circumference, and arch before the first cut is made in the leather. The saying "to make something on one last" (meaning to make everything the same) originated here and was originally a criticism of quality.
- Cutting. Laying out patterns on leather and cutting out elements of the upper and lining. Formerly done with a knife and by hand, today in factories — with a plotter. This is where costs are decided: from a meter of good Polish leather, costing about 160 PLN, an experienced craftsman can cut almost five pairs.
- Upper. According to the textbook definition, the part of the footwear that covers the upper part of the foot or the foot and part of the lower leg. Its front part is the vamp, the side-back parts are the quarters. They are sewn together with the lining, which is the internal padding made of lining leather.
- Stiffeners. The toe puff at the tip, between the upper and the lining, and the heel counter at the heel. They are formed from vegetable-tanned leather: when moistened, they can be shaped on the last, and after drying, they harden into the desired shape and hold the foot in alignment.
- Lasting. Stretching the upper onto the last and joining it to the insole — the inner part of the sole onto which the upper is placed. This is the moment of truth: a poorly lasted upper results in a shoe that cannot be saved.
- Sole and finish. The outsole is attached with glue, a Blake stitch construction (glued and stitched), or a welt construction. Finally, the heel, waxing, polishing, and edge painting.
How much work is involved? In one of the workshops in Stanisław Dolny near Kalwaria, the daily norm used to be three pairs; today, in the same village, people speak of twenty. In a larger Kalwaria company, which has distributed these same activities along an assembly line, seventy people work on one pair of shoes. This is the whole difference between craftsmanship and industry: not different technology, but a different division of the same technology.
IV. TANNER AND WHOLESALER: WHERE LEATHER CAME FROM
A shoemaking hub cannot exist without a tannery or efficient leather trade. On the list of 360 Kalwaria "industrialists" from the 1906 census, there isn't a single tanner. However, the town had a railway and wholesalers — and that was practically enough.
Vegetable tanning uses tannins from oak, spruce, and willow bark, as well as from quebracho wood, mimosa bark, chestnut, sumac, or tara pods. The process takes several weeks to several months, depending on the thickness of the leather. An acidic bath yields harder leather, a neutral bath — softer; uncolored leather darkens over time and develops a patina. Chrome tanning, introduced in the 19th century, relies on chromium salts and is completed in a few days. The leather is softer, more resistant to moisture, and cheaper — which is why the vast majority of today's leathers are produced this way. The compromise is clear: chrome buys time and price, vegetable tannin buys stiffness, patina, and the ability to be molded on the last.
The nearest tanning center was Krakow, where tanners settled outside the city walls, in a jurisdiction called Garbary. The Dłużyński Brothers tannery in Ludwinów and Krakowska Białoskórnia on Królowej Jadwigi Street operated there, the latter known as "Columbus" from 1930, nationalized in 1950, and closed in 1990; in 1948, Krakow Tanning Works were established. In the 1970s, the Radom Leather Industry Works "Radoskór" had the largest tannery in Europe, also supplying leather to other factories.
Today, this segment has shrunk. According to the Polish Leather Industry Chamber, in 2020, 353 companies operated in the leather dressing and tanning sector in Poland, two years later — 317. Kalwaria craftsmen buy leather from Polish wholesalers, who get it from small domestic tanneries. As Maciej Żmija from Stanisław Dolny explains, Italian leathers are excellent, but often have hidden flaws; there's no such problem with Polish ones. High-quality soles also come from small Polish companies. A short supply chain here is not an ideology, but an accounting decision.
V. FOUR CONSTRUCTIONS EVERY SHOEMAKER MUST KNOW
Footwear craftsmanship does not operate with "styles" but with constructions. The difference between them is always the way the quarters are joined to the vamp.
- Oxford (often called a balmoral in the UK) has quarters with eyelets sewn under the vamp — this is closed lacing. When tied, both halves meet in the middle and form a smooth, almost uniform surface. The most formal of lace-up shoes.
- Derby (also called a Gibson, or a Blucher in American terminology) has quarters sewn over the vamp — open lacing. The overlapping "wings" provide an allowance for circumference, so a derby accommodates a higher instep, thicker socks, and a wider foot. In the 1850s, it was a hunting and sports shoe, only reaching urban streets at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Polish conditions — mud, winter, a working foot — this construction is more practical than an oxford.
- Monk has no lacing at all: the upper is closed with a strap and one or two buckles. This construction was introduced in the late 19th century by English shoemaker Edward Green. In terms of formality, it ranks between an oxford and a derby.
- Jodhpur boots — now more commonly known as Chelsea boots — are ankle boots with elastic side panels, slipped on without lacing. The construction is attributed to Joseph Sparkes Hall, Queen Victoria's shoemaker, who advertised them as "J. Sparkes Hall’s Patent Elastic Ankle Boots." They were only possible thanks to Charles Goodyear's vulcanized rubber; they became fashionable in the late 1840s and received the name "Chelsea" from London's King's Road only in the 1950s and 60s. In Polish at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, "sztyblety" still referred to riding boots.
A separate issue is the method of attaching the upper to the sole. The manual welt method has been known since around 1500; its machine equivalent — the Goodyear welt construction — grew out of a machine with a curved needle, patented in 1862 by Auguste Destouy and improved in 1869 by Destouy and Daniel Mills, both working for Charles Goodyear Jr. The principle is one: a welt stitched to the upper and insole creates a cavity filled with cork, to which the outsole is attached. Such a shoe can be resoled many times. A glued shoe is discarded after the first detachment.
3 PRINCIPLES OF HERITAGE: KALWARIA ZEBRZYDOWSKA ➔ NOWROCKY
The upper is stretched over the last, not the other way around. The shape of the last determines the instep, circumference, and arch before the first cut is made in the leather.
Vegetable-tanned leather for stiffeners and insoles – it is molded wet and hardens in shape. Chrome where softness and moisture resistance are needed. One leather for everything is a shortcut, not craftsmanship.
The welted construction allows the sole to be replaced multiple times. This is the core of the ethos: an item is designed to be renewed, not discarded after the first failure.
VI. SURCHARGE, ALLOTMENT, A THOUSAND WORKSHOPS
The hub grew when the state tried to liquidate it. This is not a paradox, but the mechanics of scarcity.
In April 1947, Hilary Minc announced a "battle for trade" at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party. Three laws from June 2, 1947, gave the authorities the tools: licenses, civic tax commissions, and surcharges — arbitrarily inflated taxes that could close a workshop in a single day. The number of private shops fell from over 134,000 in 1947 to approximately 78,000 in 1949. "Trade deserts" emerged, which in small towns hindered not only supply but also the sale of local craft products. From April 3, 1948, membership of a craftsman in a guild was mandatory; in the years 1948–1955, forced cooperativization of workshops was carried out, and a 1950 law allowed the state and cooperatives to buy out machines located in private establishments. The Kalwaria guild suspended its activities in 1949 and resumed them only on August 12, 1955.
And yet. Factories couldn't keep up: in 1950, domestic production was 28.7 million pairs of shoes, in 1960 — 82.4 million, in 1970 — 141.9 million, in 1975 it exceeded 163 million and remained at this level until the end of the 1980s. However, increasing supply meant moving away from stitching and transitioning to cemented soles, and in the 1980s, footwear was rationed: coupons were introduced, and in some provinces, purchases were limited to one pair per year. There was a shortage of chemicals, dyes, uppers, buckles, even cardboard for boxes. Craftsmen received raw material allotments sufficient for only a few months of production per year — the rest had to be sourced elsewhere.
It was in this gap that Kalwaria grew. In the city and its surroundings, over a thousand small shoemaking workshops operated then; practically in every home, someone made or repaired shoes, stitched uppers, or cut soles. Hand-sewn footwear became the hallmark of Kalwaria craftsmen — the family business of Jerzy Ryłka and the workshop of Stanisław Żmija are mentioned in this context. The guild, which resumed work in 1955, issued about a thousand journeyman diplomas by 1999. Private business survived sanation, occupation, and communism here.
"When I talk to my dad about running a business, I have no doubt that in the Polish People's Republic, which fought against private enterprise, it was definitely better than today. The biggest problem was getting the right raw material, but once something was produced, it sold like hotcakes."
— Maciej Żmija, Stanisław Dolny, in an interview with "Angora", 2025
VII. 1964: TWO WORKSHOPS, TWO PATHS
In 1964, two decades after the "battle for trade," two one-person shoemaking workshops opened in the municipality of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. One became a network of over a hundred salons. The other still custom-makes shoes and consistently refuses to advertise.
Stanisław Ryłko founded his company in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in 1964. Not from scratch – according to company accounts, the first shoemaking workshop in the family was opened by his great-grandfather's brother at the end of the 19th century. The beginning was a small, one-person workshop, producing shoes using traditional methods; first men's footwear, then women's in the 1970s. The jump in scale came in the 1990s, when a factory was built in Kalwaria, making serial production possible. The first company store opened in Krakow in 1997, and the brand celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2014. In 2023, the company reported revenues of 309 million PLN – fourteen percent more than the previous year – with a net profit of 23.5 million PLN (compared to 26.1 million in 2022) and total assets of 148 million. There are over a hundred company-owned stores, plus several franchise locations.
Stanisław Żmija opened his workshop in the same year, 1964, in the village of Stanisław Dolny, now part of the Kalwaria Zebrzydowska municipality. In 1982, the local priest, who knew Karol Wojtyła, recommended him to make shoes for the Pope; Żmija obtained old army boots worn by Wojtyła when he was still the Archbishop of Krakow and took measurements from them. He personally presented the shoes on October 10, 1982, in the Vatican, during the canonization of Maximilian Kolbe. The last documented pair – light brown moccasins in size 44, with high arch support – was made before Christmas 2004. He also made shoes for Lech Kaczyński. For over twenty years, the workshop has been run by his son Maciej; prices for ready-made models range from 250 to 450 PLN, and custom-made shoes cost about one and a half thousand.
The hub also has a third branch. Henryk Konopka began his apprenticeship in 1969, passed his journeyman exam in 1972, received his master's title in 1977, and in 1978, together with his wife Janina, founded the Conhpol company in Stanisław Dolny — today divided into four separate enterprises run by his children. In the same village, Edward Moskała founded the Agda workshop in 1979; Kampa and Silwano also operate here. Stanisław Dolny itself, a village with over two thousand inhabitants, had a footwear workshop in almost every house for decades. On a national scale, brands like Lasocki (1954), Ryłko (1964), Baldowski (1973), Conhpol (1978), and Badura (1979) now refer to their craft roots from the communist era.
And the legend of the "suitcase makers" — shoemakers traveling on night trains with suitcases full of shoes to Warsaw and markets across Poland? It must be said directly: this is a local story, repeated in families and in company founding materials, but not confirmed by any document that could be pointed to. What is documented, however, is the mechanism that made such trade necessary: state wholesale did not serve private craftsmen, raw material allocations were meager, and "commercial deserts" in small towns cut off local production from sales. Anyone who wanted to sell shoes had to travel to do so.
VIII. CONTAINER, SKILLS CENTER AND WHAT REMAINED
The transformation killed the socialist combines, but it did not touch the industrial centers — new family businesses emerged from their ruins. It was imports that finally struck. Footwear production in Poland fell from 104.6 million pairs in 1990 to 48.7 million in 2000, 36.4 million in 2010, 28.8 million in 2020, and 20.1 million in 2023. Leather footwear alone saw production drop from 19.6 million pairs in 2000 to only 11.4 million in 2009 — a 42 percent decline in a decade. After customs duties on imports from Asian countries were abolished, sales of Polish shoes plummeted by a fifth in 2003.
The scale of the inflow explains the rest. In 2022, Poland imported 258.91 million pairs of footwear worth 3.8 billion euros, at an average price of 14.75 euros per pair: 155.37 million pairs from China, 21.08 million from Vietnam, 9.77 million from Bangladesh, and 9.35 million from India. Domestic production in the same year amounted to 25.15 million pairs. The number of companies in the Polish leather industry fell from 5,137 in 2020 to 4,659 in 2022, and footwear manufacturers themselves from 3,077 to 2,746.
Despite this, Lesser Poland remains the strongest concentration of small footwear companies in Poland – approximately 1,300 entities, of which over 650 are in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska alone. However, this is a different hub than in the 1980s: there are only a few dozen small, manual shoemaking workshops left in the area; the rest are small and medium-sized plants with machinery. The pandemic also took its toll – 2020 left debts, bankruptcies, warehouses of unwanted shoes, and skilled workers leaving for supermarkets, car parts factories, and a salted pretzel factory.
"We've taken three body blows, and we're afraid the fourth will be a knockout. Without government help, we won't survive."
— Michał Góralczyk, women's shoe manufacturer from Kalwaria, "Polityka", March 2021
The industry's response was organization. Manufacturers from the region — over forty of them at one meeting in Kalwaria — formed the Polish Footwear Producers Group, led by Dawid Czermak, which introduced the "PGPO Shoes made in Poland" label and represents the sector to the administration. The second response is a school. On April 10, 2025, at the School Complex of the Commission of National Education in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, the Industry Skills Center in footwear was opened — the only one of its kind in the country, as one center is created for each of the 120 designated fields. The budget exceeded 11 million PLN, the money comes from the European Funds for Social Development 2021–2027 program, and the project is led by Wadowice County in cooperation with the Polish Footwear Producers Group. Inside, there are sewing machines, riveting machines, footwear design software, and VR rooms.
What Kalwaria still lacks is a museum. In October 2021, Mayor Augustyn Ormanty approached the Guild of Various Crafts with a proposal to buy back the "Okrąglak" — the same building from 1939 — to house a Museum of Crafts; despite numerous letters and discussions, no agreement was reached. The Guild, which regained the pavilion in 1994, today brings together, depending on the source, about 280 to 500 craftsmen, still mainly carpenters. The shoemaking hub has thus received a plaque on its facade and one center in Poland where riveting is taught — but not its own display case. The story of seven shoemakers who became six hundred and fifty companies in a hundred years still has nowhere to stand.
NOWROCKY'S PERSPECTIVE: SEVEN SHOEMAKERS AND EVERY FIFTH PAIR
In 1906, Kalwaria had seven shoemakers. Today, every fifth pair of Polish shoes comes from its vicinity. No one planned this in a ministry – it grew from basement workshops, a guild, a market, and individual people who had to find customers themselves. NOWROCKY was born the same way: without subsidies, without licenses, without market permission. The dispersed, stubborn work of family workshops beat every top-down plan in Poland. This is the model we identify with.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
How did Kalwaria Zebrzydowska become a shoemaking hub?
The town was established after 1617 as a base for pilgrims to the Bernardine monastery and thrived on indulgence trade, which gave rise to regular fairs and craftsmanship. The first craft was carpentry – in the 18th century, over forty carpentry workshops operated here. The railway was introduced in 1884, and the guild organization was founded in 1885 (first entry in the member register on December 15, 1885, legal registration on February 21, 1887). The 1906 census showed only 7 shoemakers compared to 72 carpenters in the town; the scale of shoemaking only grew in the 20th century, mainly during the Polish People's Republic and after 1989. Today, over 650 footwear businesses operate in the commune alone.
How is a shoe made in a craft workshop?
The sequence is constant: the last determines the shape, then the upper and lining elements are cut, the upper is sewn (vamp plus quarters), stiffeners are glued in – the toe puff at the tip and the heel counter at the heel – followed by lasting, which is stretching the upper onto the last and attaching it to the insole. The sole is attached with glue, using the Blake method, or a welt construction. Finally, the heel, waxing, and polishing. In a small workshop, the daily norm is a few to a dozen pairs; in an industrial plant, these same operations are distributed among dozens of workstations.
What is the difference between vegetable-tanned and chrome-tanned leather?
Vegetable tanning uses tannins from oak, spruce, and willow bark, as well as from quebracho, mimosa, chestnut, sumac, or tara, and the process lasts from a few weeks to several months. The leather is stiffer, molds when wet, and develops a patina – which is why it is used for toe puffs, heel counters, and insoles. Chrome tanning is based on chromium salts, takes only a few days, and produces softer leather that is more resistant to moisture; this is how the vast majority of today's leathers are made. In Poland, in 2022, 317 companies operated in the leather finishing and tanning sector, compared to 353 two years earlier.
What were the beginnings of the Ryłko company?
Stanisław Ryłko founded the company in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in 1964 as a small, one-person craft workshop producing shoes using traditional methods; according to company accounts, his great-grandfather's brother opened the first shoemaking workshop in the family at the end of the 19th century. Initially, men's footwear was produced, with women's added in the 1970s. Serial production was made possible by a factory built in Kalwaria in the 1990s, and the first company store opened in Krakow in 1997. In 2023, the brand reported PLN 309 million in revenue and PLN 23.5 million in net profit with over one hundred proprietary stores.
Did shoemakers from Kalwaria really transport shoes on night trains?
The story of "suitcase carriers" transporting shoes on night trains to Warsaw is a local legend and part of the companies' foundational narratives – it has not been attributed to any document. However, the mechanism that made such trade necessary is documented: after the "battle for trade" of 1947–1949, state wholesale did not serve private craftsmen, raw material allocations were sufficient for only a few months of production per year, and the liquidation of private stores created "trade deserts" in small towns, cutting off local production from sales outlets. Craftsmen had to organize their sales themselves.
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