In the 1906 census, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska had 1476 inhabitants, including seven shoemakers and seventy-two carpenters. A century later, over 650 footwear businesses operate in the commune alone, and according to a "Polityka" report, one in five pairs of Polish shoes comes from the vicinity of this town. Between these two numbers lies a whole history: the Bernardine monastery and indulgence trade, the railway from 1884, the guild organization from 1885, over a thousand cottage workshops at a time when the state did not want private crafts, 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, rammed into all of it.
I. FIRST CAME THE INDULGENCE. LEATHER CAME LAST
Let's start by correcting a legend. Kalwaria was not always a city of shoemakers—it wasn't even always a city. It was a religious idea that only later developed an economy.
In 1600, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, Krakow Voivode and Senator, began constructing a hermitage on Mount Żar—the Church of the Crucifixion and the Tomb of Jesus Christ. He entrusted it to the Bernardine monks 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 for 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 emerged as a pilgrimage support hub. Nowy Zebrzydów was intended to provide pilgrims with food and shelter; the first location and town rights date back to 1617, the second to 1640, and the third to 1715, after a fire destroyed most of the wooden buildings. In the mid-17th century, about five hundred people lived here, earning their livelihood from farming, food and souvenir production, and indulgence trade. It was from this trade — not from guild tradition, not from noble grant — that regular fairs and crafts were born.
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 city, which operates to this day. The documents are precise: the first entry in the membership book of the Craft Association in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska is dated December 15, 1885, and the entry in the court register—February 21, 1887. Around 1890, the city received the name it bears to this day.
Then came the school. The national carpentry school, famous throughout Poland, is divergently dated in Kalwaria's sources: the guild states 1887, the official city history—1897. The discrepancy is worth leaving visible: 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 breaks, to this day.
And only now the census. In 1906, the city was inhabited by 1476 people, 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 carpenters. Seven shoemakers. That was the size of the "basin" when its true history began. Local promotion today speaks of over four hundred years of footwear 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 made primarily by hand. In 1929, craft cards issued to shoemakers constituted 18.3 percent of all, corresponding to 36,197 craft workshops in the country. From the partitioning powers, Poland inherited, as an industry researcher wrote, an "in-shoe desert": 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 the 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
The 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 professional textbooks — names of parts and activities, not marketing jargon.
- Last. The form on which a shoe is made. It determines the instep, circumference, and arch before the first cut into the leather. The saying "to make something on one last" originated precisely from this, and was originally a criticism of quality.
- Cutting pattern. Laying out templates on leather and cutting out the 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 zlotys, an experienced craftsman can cut almost five pairs.
- Upper. According to the textbook definition, the part of footwear that covers the top of the foot or the foot and part of the lower leg. Its front part is the vamp, the side-rear parts are the quarters. They are sewn together with the lining, which is the internal padding made of lining leather.
- Stiffeners. The toe puff in the tip, between the upper and the lining, and the counter in 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 over the last and attaching it to the insole—the internal part of the bottom onto which the upper is placed. This is the moment of truth: a poorly lasted upper results in a shoe that cannot be saved.
- Bottoming and finishing. The sole is attached with glue, by the Blake method (glued and stitched), or with a welt construction. Finally, the heel, waxing, polishing, and edge painting.
How much of this is labor? 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 spread these same activities onto an assembly line, seventy people work on one pair of shoes. This is the entire difference between craft and industry: not a different technology, but a different division of the same technology.
IV. TANNER AND WHOLESALER: WHERE THE LEATHER CAME FROM
A shoemaking hub cannot exist without tanneries 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 in practice, that was enough.
Vegetable tanning utilizes tannins from oak, spruce, and willow bark, as well as from quebracho wood, mimosa bark, chestnut, sumac, or tara pods. The process takes from several weeks to several months, depending on the thickness of the leather. An acidic bath yields harder leather, while a neutral one results in softer leather; undyed 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 moisture-resistant, and cheaper—which is why the vast majority of today's leathers are produced this way. The compromise is clear: chrome saves time and cost, while vegetable tanning provides stiffness, patina, and the ability to be molded on a last.
The nearest tanning center was Krakow, where tanners settled outside the city walls, in a juridical district called Garbary. There, the Dłużyński Brothers' tannery operated in Ludwinów, and the Krakow White Leather Factory on Królowej Jadwigi Street, known as "Columbus" from 1930, nationalized in 1950, and closed in 1990; in 1948, the Krakow Tanning Works were established. In the 1970s, the largest tannery in Europe was operated by Radom Leather Industry Plants "Radoskór," 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, and two years later — 317. Kalwaria craftsmen buy leather from Polish wholesalers, who in turn source it from small domestic tanneries. As Maciej Żmija from Stanisław Dolny explains, Italian leathers are excellent, but often have hidden flaws; with Polish ones, there is no such problem. High-quality soles also come from small Polish companies. A short supply chain here is not an ideology, but a calculation.
V. FOUR CONSTRUCTIONS EVERY SHOEMAKER MUST KNOW
Footwear craftsmanship operates not with "styles," but with constructions. The difference between them is always the way the quarters are joined to the vamp.
- The Oxford (often called 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 seamless surface. It is the most formal of laced shoes.
- The Derby (also called gibson, or blücher in American terminology) has quarters sewn on top of the vamp — open lacing. The adjustable "wings" provide extra girth, so a derby accommodates a higher instep, a thicker sock, and a wider foot. In the 1850s, it was a hunting and sports shoe, and only made its way onto city streets at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In Polish conditions — mud, winter, a working foot — it is a more practical construction than the oxford.
- A Monk strap has no lacing at all: the upper is closed by one or two straps with 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 — today more commonly known as chelsea boots — are ankle boots with elastic side panels, pulled on without lacing. The construction is attributed to Joseph Sparkes Hall, Queen Victoria's shoemaker, who advertised it as "J. Sparkes Hall’s Patent Elastic Ankle Boots." It was only possible thanks to Charles Goodyear's vulcanized rubber; it became fashionable in the late 1840s, and the name "chelsea" was only adopted from London's King's Road 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 hand-welted method has been known since around 1500; its machine equivalent—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 simple: a welt sewn to the upper and insole creates a cavity filled with cork, to which the sole is attached. Such a shoe can be resoled and re-bottomed 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, girth, and arch before the first cut is made in the leather.
Vegetable-tanned leather for stiffeners and insoles – it molds when wet and hardens in shape. Chrome where softness and moisture resistance are needed. One leather for everything is a shortcut, not craftsmanship.
The welt construction allows the sole to be replaced multiple times. This is the essence of the ethos: an item is designed to be renewable, not thrown away after the first failure.
VI. SURCHARGE, ALLOTMENT, A THOUSAND WORKSHOPS
The cluster grew when the state tried to eliminate it. This is not a paradox, but the mechanics of scarcity.
In April 1947, Hilary Minc announced the "battle for trade" at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers' Party. Three laws from June 2, 1947, gave the authorities tools: concessions, civic tax commissions, and a surcharge (domiar) — an arbitrarily inflated tax that could close a workshop in a single day. The number of private shops dropped from over 134,000 in 1947 to about 78,000 in 1949. "Trade deserts" emerged, which in small towns not only hindered supplies but also the sale of local crafts. From April 3, 1948, craftsmen were obligated to join guilds; in the years 1948–1955, workshops were forcibly collectivized, and a 1950 law allowed the state and cooperatives to buy out machines 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, national 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 that level until the end of the 1980s. However, increasing supply meant moving away from sewing to glued 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, and even cardboard for boxes. Craftsmen received raw material allotments sufficient for only a few months of production per year — the rest had to be acquired otherwise.
It was in this very gap that Kalwaria grew. In the town itself and its surroundings, over a thousand small shoemaking workshops operated; virtually every house had someone making or repairing shoes, sewing uppers, or cutting soles. Hand-sewn footwear became the hallmark of Kalwaria artisans — the family workshops of Jerzy Ryłka and 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 here during the sanation period, occupation, and communism.
"When I talk to my dad about running a business, I have no doubt that under communism, which fought against private initiative, it was definitely better than today. The biggest problem was acquiring the right raw material, but once something was produced, it sold out immediately."
— 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 sole-proprietor shoemaking workshops opened in the Kalwaria Zebrzydowska commune. One became a network of over a hundred stores. The other still makes custom-made 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-man operation 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, enabling mass production. The first company store opened in Krakow in 1997, and the brand celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2014. In 2023, the company reported PLN 309 million in revenue – fourteen percent more than the previous year – with PLN 23.5 million in net profit (compared to PLN 26.1 million in 2022) and total assets of PLN 148 million. There are over one hundred company-owned stores, plus several franchised ones.
Stanisław Żmija opened his workshop in the same year, 1964, in the village of Stanisław Dolny, now part of the Kalwaria Zebrzydowska commune. In 1982, a local priest, who knew Karol Wojtyła, recommended him to make shoes for the Pope; Żmija obtained old military boots worn by Wojtyła when he was still the Bishop of Krakow and took his 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, size 44, with high arch support – was made before Christmas 2004. He also made shoes for Lech Kaczyński. His son Maciej has been running the workshop for over twenty years; prices for ready-made models range from 250 to 450 zlotys, and custom-made shoes cost about one and a half thousand.
The cluster also has a third branch. Henryk Konopka began learning the craft in 1969, passed his journeyman exam in 1972, earned the master title in 1977, and in 1978, together with his wife Janina, founded Conhpol in Stanisław Dolny — now 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 there. Stanisław Dolny itself, a village of over two thousand inhabitants, had a shoemaking workshop in almost every house for decades. Nationally, brands like Lasocki (1954), Ryłko (1964), Baldowski (1973), Conhpol (1978), and Badura (1979) now refer to their artisanal 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 all over Poland? It must be said directly: this is a local story, repeated in families and in company founding materials, but unconfirmed 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 artisans, raw material allocations were starvation-level, and "trade deserts" in small towns cut off local production from sales. Anyone who wanted to sell shoes had to go and sell them themselves.
VIII. CONTAINER, SKILLS CENTER, AND WHAT REMAINS
The transformation killed socialist conglomerates, but it did not touch the clusters — new family businesses emerged from their ruins. Only imports hit hard. 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 just 11.4 million in 2009 — a 42 percent decrease in a decade. After customs duties on imports from Asian countries were abolished, sales of Polish shoes plummeted by one-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 5137 in 2020 to 4659 in 2022, and footwear manufacturers alone from 3077 to 2746.
Despite this, Małopolska remains the strongest cluster of small footwear companies in Poland — approximately 1,300 entities, of which over 650 are in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska itself. However, this is a different cluster than in the 1980s: there are only a few dozen small, manual shoemaking workshops left in the area, the rest being 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, auto parts, and a pretzel factory in the commune.
"We've been hit with three uppercuts, we fear the fourth will be a knockout. Without state aid, 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 – established the Polish Footwear Producers Group (PGPO), led by Dawid Czermak, which introduced the "PGPO Shoes made in Poland" mark and represents the sector to the administration. The second response is a school. On April 10, 2025, the Industry Skills Center for Footwear was opened at the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej School Complex in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska – the only one of its kind in the country, as only one center is established for each of the 120 designated fields. The budget exceeded 11 million PLN, funded by the European Funds for Social Development 2021–2027 program, and the project is run by the Wadowice district in cooperation with the Polish Footwear Producers Group. Inside, there are sewing machines, staplers, footwear design software, and VR rooms.
What Kalwaria still lacks is a museum. In October 2021, Mayor Augustyn Ormanty proposed to the Guild of Various Crafts to buy back the "Okrąglak" – the same building from 1939 – to house a Museum of Craft; despite numerous letters and discussions, no agreement was reached. The Guild, which regained the pavilion in 1994, now associates, depending on the source, between 280 and 500 craftsmen, still mainly carpenters. The shoemaking cluster has thus received a plaque on its facade and a national center where stapling is taught – but no dedicated display case. The story of seven shoemakers who, in a hundred years, became six hundred and fifty companies, still has no place 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 the ministry – it grew from workshops in basements, guilds, fairs, and individuals who had to find their own customers. NOWROCKY was created in the same way: without subsidies, without licenses, without market permission. The dispersed, persistent work of family workshops beat every top-down plan in Poland. This is the model we embrace.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
How did Kalwaria Zebrzydowska become a shoemaking hub?
The town was founded after 1617 as a pilgrimage base for the Bernardine monastery and thrived on indulgence trade, which led to regular fairs and craftsmanship. Carpentry was the first craft – in the 18th century, over forty carpentry workshops operated here. The railway arrived in 1884, and a guild organization was established in 1885 (first entry into the membership book on December 15, 1885, judicial registration on February 21, 1887). A 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 order is fixed: the last determines the shape, then follows the cutting of the upper and lining elements, sewing the upper (vamp plus quarters), inserting stiffeners — toe puff in the toe and heel counter in the heel — and then lasting, which means stretching the upper over the last and attaching it to the insole. The sole is attached with glue, using the Blake method or a welted construction. Finally, the heel, waxing, and polishing. In a small workshop, the daily output is from a few to a dozen pairs; in an industrial plant, these same operations are distributed among several dozen 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 several weeks to several months. The leather is stiffer, forms when wet, and develops a patina – which is why it is used for toe puffs, heel counters, and insoles. Chrome tanning relies on chromium salts, is completed in a few days, and produces softer leather more resistant to moisture; the vast majority of today's leathers are produced this way. In Poland in 2022, 317 companies operated in the leather dressing and tanning sector, compared to 353 two years earlier.
How did the Ryłko company begin?
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, and women's footwear was added in the 1970s. Mass 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 of its own 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 an element of founding corporate narratives — it has not been attributed to any document. However, the mechanism that made such trade necessary is documented: after the "battle for trade" in 1947–1949, state wholesale did not serve private craftsmen, raw material allocations were sufficient for only a few months of production a year, and the liquidation of private shops created "trade deserts" in small towns, cutting off local production from sales. Craftsmen had to organize their own sales.
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