With the help of shop assistants, a white-haired man put his feet inside a foot measuring device, which was about 1 meter high, with a flashing blue light.

The device is equipped with six scanners, which can scan the sides and sole of each foot. Within a few seconds, the screen of the device displayed a 3D model with the exact length, width, height and shape of the customer's feet.

"We can make tailored shoes for customers based on the 3D models," said Li Ying, director of the new retail department of Lao Mei Hua company, a time-honored shoemaking brand in northern China's Tianjin municipality.

The company, founded in 1911, has attracted more customers as it has introduced more high-tech devices in its "smart" store, bringing a new experience to shoe lovers.

In the smart store, customers can place orders on the "magic mirrors "by tapping the screen. The mirrors are intelligent shelves with detailed information of products displayed on-screen.

"My mother is accustomed to wearing their shoes, so I often come here to buy them," said a customer surnamed Li. She bought a pair of black flats for her 75-year-old mother and was browsing through other shoe samples via the intelligent shelves.

When the camera fixed behind the mirrors senses people getting close, the intelligent shelf will narrow its interface to a small icon and become a mirror for the customers to try on shoes.

The entire smart store is covered with cameras equipped with an artificial intelligence system, which can recognize the gender, age, visit frequency and walking routes of customers.

By analyzing the routes, the system is able to figure out the most popular products in the store aiding the company's future marketing decisions.

While the technology dazzles the customers, the company also brings them closer to traditional shoemaking techniques by using the sounds of hammers, scissors and needles in the store.

Zhang Jianming, a 36-year-old shoemaker, wears a brown apron and sits behind a wooden workbench with vamps, soles and various tools on the table. He carefully pokes a small hole in a sole to allow the thick thread to pass through and finishes it with dense stitches.

The traditional shoemaking skill of Lao Mei Hua was listed as national intangible cultural heritage in 2011.

"Making shoes is a hard job. We need to endure longtime loneliness," said 62-year-old Sun Yukun, Zhang's teacher, who has been working in the industry for nearly five decades.

Sun added that no matter how advanced technologies have become, traditional shoemaking skills are still irreplaceable and need to be passed on from generation to generation.

"We won't lose our century-old shoemaking skills, but we need to keep up with the times as well," said Dong Jianshe, general manager of the company.

Since 2017, the company has organized activities for customers of all ages to learn about traditional handicrafts, such as making circular fans and Chinese knots for free each weekend. In the first half of 2019, the company sold about 270,000 pairs of shoes.

Zhang Baoyi, head of the Institute of Sociology under the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences, said that inheritance is crucial for every time-honored brand. But they can also adopt the latest technology to operate better.

"It will maximize the value of such companies when they combine traditional techniques with the latest technologies."