One of the results of my trip to France back in January was getting to select some brand new Lactae Hevea soles in person. The Reltex factory tucked away in the hills of Virieu, France produces the best soles in the world from 100% natural latex. Their latest creation is called the Aspen and will be hitting our website on a collection of chromexcel ranger-mocs in the coming weeks.

Terrapin Stationers is an old school engraved stationery company located in NYC. The company has been engraving and producing stationery for New York City's tastemakers since 1913. Ted Harrington took the helm in 1990, stepping in for his father.

The company, originally called Stationers engraving company, was working on a branding project for Jerry Garcia called Terrapin. When Garcia passed, Ted adopted the Terrapin moniker for his own brand.

We are currently working on a collaboration with Terrapin for note cards and other items with beautiful water color illustrations of our shoes. More to come later.

When I made plans to attend Bread and Butter in Berlin I knew that I had to make time to meet some friends and contacts in France. My flight was connecting through Paris, so this was a no-brainer. At the top of my priorities was to visit Reltex in Virieu, a very small mountainside town situated between Lyon and Grenoble. It was a little bit of a challenge to get there: two and a half hour train, met at the station by Patrick Giroud, the President and founder of Reltex, and then a 45 minute drive on winding roads just outside of the French Alps.
I instantly found Mr. Giroud to be warm, welcoming and humorous. He truly has a passion for his trade, it is no surprise then that he continues to do it even at 72. Reltex and Mr. Giroud are responsible for bringing the world Lactae Hevea (pronounced lack-tie heavy-ah, the "h" on "hevea" is silent but you'd sound pretentious pronouncing it that way in this country) latex outsoles. Lactae Hevea literally means milk of the hevea tree in Latin. The soles are made from the sap or milk of the hevea tree. Essentially, it is 100% natural latex rubber.
The milk is harvested in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam using sustainable methods and shipped to the tiny town of Virieu in France, where a passionate and intelligent man developed a process for creating the most comfortable and durable rubber outsoles in the world. There really is nothing like [...]

The Pop-Up Flea is back and we'll be joining them for the second year in a row. Please come see us on the first floor in booth #2. The event will be located at 443 West 18th Street (between 9th and 10th ave), New York, New York 10011. We'll be showing some exciting new products and special event pricing. Our shoes do not go on sale so this is a very limited opportunity to take advantage of a discount.

It's been a while. I've been traveling, San Francisco last week, New York this week, my back is feeling it. We launched a made-to-order collaboration with my good friends at The Common in SF (same guys who own the Taylor Stitch brand). You can walk into the shop, pick your style, pick your leather, your outsole, and all other details, and we'll make the shoes for you in about three weeks. So if you are in the SF area, please go visit them at 383 Valencia Street in the Mission district. I wanted to share some pictures from the trip.