Preface
Narek was born in Ethiopia, the son of an Armenian Genocide survivor.
His father carried within him the silence of exile and the discipline of a master craftsman. In 1933, he moved to Djibouti during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. After the occupation ended in 1944, Avedis returned to Addis Ababa and built a shoemaking enterprise in the city. There, he introduced high-heeled, Italian-inspired women’s shoes to a place that had never before seen such elegance shaped by local hands.
What began as a modest trade grew into a respected craft—fueled by precision, endurance, and vision.
Narek, his youngest son, grew up surrounded by the scent of leather, the rhythm of hammer striking sole, and rows of wooden shoe molds standing like quiet soldiers along the workshop walls. In that household, reinvention was never a philosophy. It was survival.
History, however, rarely moves gently. War, political upheaval, and displacement would repeatedly shake the foundations of the family’s life. Stability came and went, but adaptation became instinct.

Like his father before him, who had fled the Armenian Genocide, Narek too would one day be forced to leave Ethiopia.

In time, Narek’s path would lead him far beyond leather and awls, into the emerging world of graphic arts and digital printing. Technology replaced stitching as his craft. Across continents, his work would cross borders, both physical and cultural.
Through every transformation, one lesson endured: survival is not endurance alone.
It is the courage to reinvent without surrender.

This is Narek’s long road.