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STAVROS MELISSINOS – The Poet Sandal Maker of Athens
STAVROS MELISSINOS aka “The Poet Sandal Maker of Athens” (September 10th 1929), celebrated sandal maker and poet.

He is credited with introducing to the mid-1950’s fashion world the sandals of Classical Greece -as an essential daily footwear -and starting a trend that is still alive today. He originally planned to be a film director. His studies and plans though were cut short, in 1954, when his father Georgios died, at the age of 54, due to a stroke, leaving behind the well-known footwear business he had established in 1920. When he took over from his father, he was already married to Sofia Apessos, daughter of a Chian businessman from Odessa, repatriated with his family (in the mid-30s) to the Campos of Chios. His wife, who was raised in a cosmopolitan and art-loving environment (niece of renowned French fashion designer Jean Dessès) urged him to turn to poetry as an outlet of artistic expression. In the 1960s he had already become famous as “The Poet Sandal Maker of Athens”.

FAMILY BACKGROUND
He was born to two historic families of Greece. On his father’s side he comes from the Byzantine Melissenos family (also Melissenus or Melissinos) and on his mother Olga Tselios’ side, he is a descendant of the legendary Greek War of Independence hero Demos Tselios (Ferentino), from Missolonghi, a contemporary of Lord Byron, who died in 1824, in Missolonghi, fighting also for the liberation of Greece. His mother passed away when he was still a toddler and his father remarried to Marianthy Akrithakis, aunt of the famous Greek painter Alexis Akrithakis. His step mother loved him a lot and taught him the works of Vitsentzos Kornaros (17th century Cretan poet) and especially Kornaros’ poem Erotokritos, which infused into him the love of poetry at an early age.

HIS CLASSIC GREEK SANDALS
The idea of creating ancient Greek leather sandals for daily use, came to him, in the mid- 50’s, when an English choreographer asked him for a few pairs of classical Greek sandals for her dance group. The thought of making a few pairs for her and a few more for his shop appealed to him -his father used to make this type of sandals for Ancient Greek Drama productions. His idea of classical Greek footwear, for modern day people, soon caught on and his handmade leather sandals became extremely popular, with fashion conscious customers, college students, tourists, intellectuals and celebrities visiting Athens.

CELEBRITY CLIENTELE
In the 1950s and especially in the 1960s Greece started to become a very popular tourist destination, thanks to its history, beautiful landscapes and the still unspoiled life on the Greek islands. Many celebrities visiting Athens also paid visits to the “Poet Sandal Maker of Athens”. Sophia Loren visited him when she was filming the movie “Boy on a Dolphin”, in Greece, in 1957. After a visit from the Beatles, in 1967, his sandals became a cult item for the Hippy Generation. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis opted for a minimal design that was also worn by King Tutankhamun, many centuries earlier, in Ancient Egypt. She is also the one who saved his old sandal workshop from being demolished by Greek authorities, in the 1970s -there were plans for demolitions and excavations around the Ancient Roman Agora area, in Athens. Maria Callas bought a style that was named after her. Barbra Streisand bought the “Spartan” style, in 1989, which was the very first sandal model Melissinos made in the 1950s.

HIS POETRY
Stavros Melissinos -during his tenure as “The Poet Sandal Maker of Athens”- also wrote plays and published books of his poetry, which he used to offer to scholars and customers who were artistically and intellectually inclined. His poetry is romantic, lyrical and philosophical and his most famous book is “The Athenian Rubaiyat”, translated into English by his son Pantelis Melissinos, poet, fine-artist and alumnus of Parsons School of Design -also current owner of the business.

"ATHENIAN RUBAIYAT"
Stavros Melissinos’ “Athenian Rubaiyat” is a work inspired by Edward FitzGerald’s the “Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam”, but with a touch of daily Greek thinking.

The earthly crowns and futile splendours, take away.

I need no granite forts, just let me have while I may

The smile of pain, the tear of bliss and I will build

A "myriad palaces" in me as I live from day to day.

The demons live in Hades, the angels in the Skies,

There’s joy and laughter up above -below anguished cries-

And since we’re between those two, unseen but mighty powers,

Get drunk on life to beat the lows and feel the highs!

Quatrains from Stavros Melissinos’ “ATHENIAN RUBAIYAT” - Athens 1959 - Translated into English by his son Pantelis Melissinos

RELOCATIONS
During the 2004 Athens Olympics, Stavros Melissinos was evicted from the old sandal workshop, his father had established, in 1920, in Monastiraki. He moved to a nearby Psirri place, where he finally decided to pass the business onto his son Pantelis Melissinos, current owner of "Melissinos Art – The Poet Sandal Maker”.

CURRENT LOCATION
In November 2019, after almost 100 years, the historic sandal business left the Monastiraki-Psirri area and relocated to a self-owned property in the Acropolis Museum neighborhood aka “Acropolis” or Makrygianni (Makriyianni), in the historic center of Athens.