After a few years of not travelling thanks to Covid Tom and I finally made a trip back to Italy, to the Marche region where our shoes are made. A big part of creating shoes are the relationships that we build along the way with suppliers and manufacturers who all work together with us to resolve the challenges and create new things. We have a few new styles in the process for Autumn Winter so we dusted off our rusty Italian and headed over there to chat shoes, Brexit and to catch up on how life has been for them these past few years.
The area our shoes are made in is incredibly beautiful, I wish I'd taken more photos but then again we were working, so here's a few highlights from the trip; both the factory side of things and a precious afternoon at the beach.
Above is the factory where our shoes are made. It's a small family factory over looking the hillside.
Below are a few details which caught my eye from some of the other shoe factories we visited too; the lasts in their creates, threads in the sample room, the old machines, the colours of the storage crates stacked high, the curly red flex that hangs from various parts of the factory to power the machines, a wall of cutting knives for insoles and the light streaming in through the old warehouse door.
One of the places we visited had THE most incredible collection of vintage Vespas and cars in various states of repair. Oh to be driving round Italy in the summertime in the vintage red Alfa Romeo!
And finally, a couple of hours at the beach and the starfish I found to bring home to my son.
