Underneath the house where he lived as a child with his parents, there was a shoe store. It was a shoe shop like those in many neighborhoods, simple, but inside there was a corner reserved for better quality shoes. Roger had studied them well. And, at ten or twelve years old, every time he passed in front of that shoe store ---he remembers it was on Palencia street and was called Albert---, he would notice which shoes in the display window seemed the most beautiful to him.
At the Verneda high school where he studied, he compared the sneakers they wore with his classmates. "We would say to each other: mine run faster than yours," he recalls, when he was about fourteen years old. Even then he felt a great interest in footwear and, although he remembers that at home they were financially tight, as soon as he could, he made a good choice of what he wanted to wear on his feet. He liked to be well-shod.
By the age of eighteen, he already knew the shoe stores in Barcelona that had the shoes he liked the most. And between eighteen and twenty, the first salaries he earned working he invested in somewhat more expensive shoes, from brands like Camper or handmade Italian firms. He would go to La Rambla and go up to the upper floor of Casas Internacional, where the men's shoe store was. He also had another store well located, the Loft on Avinyó street, where there were designs of that footwear that he loved. He felt so happy among leather shoes, that one might think the expression happier than a child with new shoes was born inspired by him.
Filmmaker career
But that kid who made sure he had good footwear studied film. He was a student of the first graduating class of the Escola de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya(ESCAC). He created a production company, and for ten years he dedicated himself fully to it, in addition to teaching film classes, until, towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, he felt like a change. "I had always dreamed of opening a shoe store," he explains.And on a trip to New York, where a work from his production company was participating in a festival, he passed by a shoe store that rekindled his desire to open a shoe store in his city. There he discovered handmade shoes by an Armenian designer whom he went to meet personally in Los Angeles. "I really liked what he did, and we agreed that I could sell his shoes in Barcelona," he says.
Thus he began to walk towards his dream of opening his shoe store. "I was quite clear that it had to be in the Born. Here, craftsmanship, fashion, and new trends mix. There are interesting things that you don't find elsewhere, an advanced product that can attract the type of tourist who visits us, who comes to the Picasso Museum ---a five-minute walk from his store---, therefore, has cultural interests, discernment, and good taste. And, since my shoes are handmade with very well-treated leather, they have a medium-high price."
The store is called Nu and is located on Cotoners street, number 14. He opened it in 2009, on Sant Jordi. A good day for such a special reason. At first, he only sold shoes from that American brand, until he himself learned to make his own models. "An architect, Nicoló de Paola, who had learned to make shoes in Venice, had settled in Ciutat Vella. He came to Barcelona and opened a store on Banys Vells street. And with him, I learned to make shoes," he explains.
In 2015, he was already able to start exhibiting his first shoe designs and receiving orders to send abroad or deliver in the store. He named his brand after his maternal grandfather, Evarist Bertran, because he admired him greatly. "He was a super naturalist. He followed the disciplines of Dr. Nicola Capo and Adrian Vander, pioneers of naturopathy in Spain," Roger recounts. "My grandfather had great faith in the virtuous triangle of lemon, garlic, and onion. He was a phenomenal person, and he talked to everyone. He was a shoemaker, carpenter, cooper, and watchmaker, and he worked for the Barcelona City Council. He fixed everything. In the fifties, he had an English motorcycle and put a sidecar on it," Bertran recalls about his grandfather.
Roger's shoes are sold in cult stores in cities like Mykonos, Berlin, Tokyo, and Zurich"He was a character, a sailor and a cyclist. I didn't see my name on my shoes, but I did see his, and I thought that way I was paying homage to him. Evarist Bertran can be a name from here and there. I was very clear about it," he expresses. Roger remembers how some Swedes immediately became interested in those leather shoes, Evarist Bertran brand, after seeing them on Instagram. And that's how merchants from Osaka also started to get to know them.
He designs the shoe models he wants to make, and they are manufactured in a workshop in Andalusia. He has a stable collection, with about fifteen designs. He loves choosing the leathers and, deciding which part to use for each area of the shoe, even more. They are shoes made with Italian leather and soles from Igualada. When they arrive from the factory to his store, he still gives them the final finish: he marks the crease and engraves the Evarist Bertran brand on the sole with hot iron. Then, he puts on the laces.
"My references are Italian shoes with a very fine line, with pointed toes and shiny. I, on the other hand, have chosen another line, more like the type of shoes made with horse leather, like those made in the Italian region of Tuscany, between Pisa and Florence, with vegetable tanning, because that way they acquire a patina that evolves. That is beautiful; I really like the world of leathers, especially horse and kangaroo," he says.
In reality, what he does by folding the tips of the shoes is to give them life, the movement they would have over time, giving them the value of lived experiences. "They have raised tips, like in pictorial references, or like those caught in a river. They are shoes with character, that's what age gives; when they are old they are much more beautiful than when they are new. That's why I give them the personality they would have later," he explains.
Roger opens the store from Monday to Friday. "I am passionate about what I do and I love discovering new leathers and designing shoes, but without any pretension," he states. "My shoes are sold in cult stores in cities like Mykonos, Berlin, Tokyo, and Zurich. Whatever comes, welcome it. I have no desire for growth and I set limits to prioritize personal time and tranquility," he adds. He is now designing a line of athletic shoes.
Enjoy every moment in that store that inspires calm and where every pair of shoes seems to already tell its own story. "I'm building my parish of clients from Barcelona, with a quite creative profile, people who have a taste for shoes, who give them importance as I always have. Shoes form a way of being in the world. As you step, you live. The shoe is what is between you and the earth. And if the footwear is made with noble materials and vegetable tanned, the foot breathes and the shoe adapts."
He has been on Cotoners street for sixteen years, on the corner with Pou de la Cadena, which leads to Princesa street. These are those narrow streets of the old city, baptized with names of guilds, old trades, many of which have been lost. Roger's store, like so many others in that network of alleys, is very visible and at the same time very discreet. Inside, in a very original way, shelves with essential merchandise coexist with a divan to comfortably try on shoes, in a spacious area, with a small desk where Roger always has work. "Sometimes a tourist comes in and I can spend two hours chatting. Here I feel at home, it's a cozy place that invites quiet conversation, and I like not being a slave to having to sell," he explains.
"My ego swells when someone from another country, after five years, for example, comes back into my store, and also when I see that they have learned about the brand through social media and follow it." It is emotions like these that make each day different and endearing, like the story that in each pair of shoes begins to walk with the name of grandfather Evarist Bertran.