Theresia Hall, The Shoe Repairer (PEOPLE 2024)

The story of these pictures: It was my annual visit to my parents who are now living in Bali. I had asked my mum if she could help me sew the ribbons to my pointe shoes. She said that she is getting old and tired and would be to hard to sew ribbons onto my pointe shoes. However, she assured me that the pointe shoes would be sewn by the mobile shoe-fixer. This mobile shoe-fixer walks around the Nusa Dua Block every day and would fix the any types of shoes/handbags on the spot. So I agreed and brought 3 pairs of pointe shoes; one to be sewn, and the other 2 shoes, to be fixed. When I got there, there was no sign of this mobile shoe-fixer. My Dad had been waiting outside our house, waiting for this shoe-fixer to walk across our house. Day after day, there was no sign of him. Feeling disappointed, there was only 2 more days in Bali and no pointe shoes had been sewn. Though disappointed, I accepted the fact that I will bring back home my pointe shoes, unfixed and unsewn. But keeping positive and telling myself it's alright. The next day, one sunny morning, I had taken a walk around the smaller lanes, and I could not believe my eyes when I read "Repair for jeans, jackets, sandals, handbags and. shoes!". I was so happy; I went back to my hotel to grab my shoes and ran back to his shop and handed him my pointe shoes. I was explaining in my broken Indonesian language how the ribbons were meant to be sewn. What I had noticed that this man fixed the shoes with sewing machines. This is even better than hand sewn. I was so happy and fortunate to find him! Not only ribbons were sewn, but the other shoes were also fixed too, and neatly! Neatly, because he had used the sewing machine to sew the shoes properly. I asked him, if I could take a photo of him and he said yes. Thank you, Mister shoe-man!

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.