Buy a pair of three-inch bound-feet shoes from the brothers who still make them
Three-inch golden lilies, cut by hand
A shophouse on Harmony Street, inside the UNESCO core, where three elderly brothers make Peranakan beaded slippers and three-inch shoes for bound feet. It is free to walk in and look, and there is no booking.
Why it's unique
Wah Aik Shoemaker has been making kasut manek, the beaded Peranakan slipper, and shoes for bound feet since the family converted the shop from a coffee house in the early twentieth century. Tony, Simon and Raymond Yeo are the third generation, in their seventies and eighties, and they still cut and sew the three-inch golden lily shoes by hand. Neither Malaysian national press nor the specialist craft press can name another working shop making bound-feet footwear as a continuing family trade, and the brothers put it as being among the few remaining artisans rather than the last.
What is here that is not in a display case is the trade itself. The last pair made for a customer with actually bound feet was in the 1990s and everything since has gone to collectors and museums, but the lasts are still in the shop and so is the knowledge of how a foot was folded to fit them. Repair work on old family kasut manek is what most Peranakan customers come in for, which is the clearest sign this is a working shop rather than a heritage exhibit.
Before you go
A pair of bound-feet shoes takes about a week and costs around RM95, which is the cheap thing in the shop. The beaded slippers start at RM700 and take far longer, because Yeo Soon Lan, the sister of the house, stitches every bead individually.
They sell only two to six pairs of the tiny shoes in a week, so if the brothers are in, ask. They will show you the lasts and explain how the foot was folded, which is the part you cannot get from a photograph. Repair work on old family kasut manek runs RM500 to RM900.