Takis Leather Fashion, Symi
It would be interesting, wouldn’t it, if I said here: if you are British and you vote/voted to leave the EU, please don’t come back to my blog. I could look at the stats and see if the number of hits went down. But I can’t imagine that any of my readers, who clearly love reading about Symi, Greece and the Alarm Cat, among other things, would actually be so short-sighted as to vote to leave, so it would be a wasted exercise. Instead, I want to show you some photos of the Takis Leather Shop in Yialos, Symi, as that’s a much more pleasant subject.
I worked for Takis for a season back in 2003 and we’ve been friends ever since. He was very good to me, as his brother Nikos was very good to Neil who worked for him.
He’s the kind of guy you can rely on; he’s always said that if I needed a job he would find me one. It was a good season, a bit of hard work never hurt anyone, in fact it did me good and I lost around three stone simply by walking from Triada to Yialos every day, spending nine hours on my feet running around and serving people and walking back up to 500 + steps to home of an evening for two hours in the courtyard with a salad before crashing out. Seven days a week for seven months. I could do with the same exercise now as that three stone has gone back on with a vengeance, as it does.
But back to the shop. It’s expanded over the years, Takis now has several staff working for him, all multi-lingual as far as I can hear. He has a large indoor store and a large forecourt selling his designer leather bags, sandals, shoes, and other leather goods, many of which (if not all) are designed by him. He’s always there for you for a chat and guided tour and you can even see his studio where he creates the most amazing art on leather, hides, bags and so on.
The shop is on the north side of the harbour, the clock tower side if you like, and all and any of the staff will be happy to serve you. I reckon that if you say you are a Symi Dream reader (a Symi Dreamer) you might even get a discount, but don’t tell him I said that, just mention Symi Dream and see what happens – it certainly won’t be a bad thing. So, arrive at Symi, get off the boat at the clock tower and walk along about, what? 100 yards, and there you will see the amazing emporium of leather fashion, goods and art that is Takis Leather. (And he is not even paying me to write this. He doesn’t know I am writing this!) Have a look around. The guys and gals who work there are always helpful and up for a chat, but there’s no pressure to buy anything, and he has excellent air conditioning, I remember spending a few minutes a day trying to dry off under that as we worked through a summer that saw temperatures up in the high 40s or above. I often had to take a change of costume with me, or nip to Neil’s T-shirt shop after setting up to get a new and dry shirt to wear. Ah those were the days!
But today is THE day and I shall refer you to the top paragraph. But before you go and vote and put a cross in the Remain-In box (if you haven’t done so already – we did our postal vote about three weeks ago), you really should go and have a look at Takis Leather Fashion website, as the pics there are much better than the few I snapped yesterday when down in the harbour. Mine were taken before the day boats arrived. The website shows you his amazing pixel art – pointillism for leather I guess – and also inside the shop and some close-ups of the goods on sale. Here’s the link; go take a look, then go vote Remain. X
