After over 30 years in the retail business, Dino Certo vividly remembers as a child growing up on the east side of Manhattan, peering through the window of Lefcourt, a prestigious, high-fashion, and elegant men's shoe store on Madison Avenue and 46th Street. A life long love of fine, handcrafted shoe wear was born.
Mr. Certo initially pursued a career in custom tailoring and designing of fine men's clothing, apprenticing at the famous couture tailor William Abel, creating design and pattern correction. During this learning period in his life, Mr. Certo studied at Central Needle Trades, honing his talent for design and custom tailoring.
This led Mr. Certo to take his dream to Beverly Hills, California where he proceeded to provide custom clothing for some of the most famous and influential people in the world. This prestigious list of clientele includes Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, and many others too numerous to list here.
Throughout this successful time in Mr. Certo's life, his early love of handcrafted shoes was never far from his mind. Therefore, in 1980, Mr. Certo opened a shoe department in his existing Italian boutique and custom tailoring shop in Beverly Hills. His success in this area was instantaneous. His clientele warmly referred to the charming gentleman from NewYork simply as Certo, and his name became synonymous with those shoes exclusively designed, and handmade in Italy, which you could only find in Los Angeles at the shop bearing Mr. Certo's name.