Our Principles
Design
Most people think design is about how something looks. But how we understand design, it is really about how something works, down to the finest detail.
We believe that shoes and clothes must be made first and foremost for the moving human body, and to enable full range of movement as much as possible.
What follows is true elegance, which only can be achieved if one feels absolutely comfortable. Beauty is not a superficial aim, but the logical consequence.
»A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.«
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Sensory-friendly: No scratchy tags or seams! Required tags must be easy to remove.
Adaptive design: Our sandals are an example of this: You can switch between two closing variants or even go without and wear your sandals like slides.
Built to last: We make our products as durable as possible. It happens quite often that customers tell us they're still wearing their first pair HIGH FEELS sandals from 2016, which is really amazing.
Continuous improvement: We're developing our shoes and clothing iteratively from one generation to the next. Our sandals reached the 7th generation as of 2025.
No logo mania: You're not a walking advertising billboard. We love branding being modest and that's what we'll stick to.
Sustainability: Our approach is to design our products in a way that they won't go out of style, and we make them adaptive, versatile, and as long-lasting as possible.
Plastic-free packaging: We design our packaging to be re-usable and plastic-free.
Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing: Production happens in small batches multiple times per year. This enables us to react to customer feedback, reduce waste and eliminate overproduction.
Why we Choose European Shoe Making
- The best materials for shoes come from Italy and Spain. We can visit the factories any time, the working conditions are nice and the managers happily show us around when we drop by.
- Portugal and Spain have a long tradition of quality shoe making. Besides Italy, these are the goto-places In Europe when it comes to shoes, as there are extensive networks of specialized manufacturers for all things related.
- The sandals have a shorter way from the factory to the warehouse, and from the warehouse to our customers. It takes us 4-5 days instead of a couple of weeks and it’s way better for the environment.
Making Vegan Shoes Comes with its own Trade-offs, of Course
- Even today suppliers often do not understand why someone would care (or don't believe that it is not just a marketing gag). We'll have to educate and spend some extra effort to monitor the supply chain, which slows things down sometimes.
- Synthetic materials are still not as durable as animal skin. But over time and rigorous testing, we found some really good ones.
- It is tough to accept that no matter what or how you produce, there is always some impact on the environment. We're following the latest trends in sustainable material technology. If an interesting project pops up, we're getting in contact. However many of these projects are often not ready for production, not available in industrial quantities, may have exclusive contracts with major brands, and sometimes … they just don't answer the phone or reply to emails.