Simple norms

Quality and positivity are the guiding principles to our journey. Not only do they define an approach to our products, they also influence our way of doing business. We decided to build up around a pre-order model to ensure that each product finds a buyer and meets high quality standards in terms of materials and production. To go even farther, we set quotas to our productions : we like to build products from dead stock we find, and thus will only produce them in limited quantities.

 

 

 

Waste in the loop

The fashion industry is going so fast it doesn’t bother coping with its waste : each year, it roughly creates 92 million tons of textile and leather waste. To us, these materials constitute a strong opportunity to build something different. Today, most of our leathers for shoes (unless mentioned otherwise) come from dead-stock to bridge the gap in the industry. More generally, our ambition is to create new with old : permanent components such as soles, boxes or pouches are exclusively recycled.

 

 

 

Craft makes perfect

Craft is telling a story through an object. It is about enhancing it with skill and fine materials. But it is also about a passion for the process.

We try to stand for this vision of craft and thus ensure that each of our products encapsulates this passion for narratives as well as this obsession for excellence.

 

 

 

Less but better

We strive to design our products as part of episodic projects in order to come up with what we consider as the best we can do. Time is our ally and reiteration is our way. This process allows us to ensure we reach Sosei’s quality standards.

We also believe it is very troublesome, not to say impossible, to create four to six collections of hundreds products a year and truly remain environmentally engaged. From that point we made choices and decided to release episodic projects to build up over time the brand we desired. Projects will be limited, but it is not for no reason. 

 

 

 

Going on a human adventure

So many things to be said here. Did you actually know shoes were made by real human beings? We’re writing this because as soon as this journey began, we realised that among our friends, relatives and acquaintance, many thought shoes were exclusively made by machines. In fact, to make one basic pair of shoes, more than twelve trades are involved, and shoes go through the hands of many more makers.

Our suppliers are the best. We mean it. We praise them for the opportunity they give us and endeavour to give them back the chance to grow with us. We believe changing fashion is not only about ticking the boxes as a brand, but it is about thinking out of the box as part of a greater team that englobes all supply chain actors.

As a new-born brand, we won’t be telling you we met everyone out there, because it is simply not the case yet. However, we create strong and trustworthy partnerships, one step after another, and ambition to get things done progressively. This is the beginning of our adventure.

 

 

 

Lucidity at our core

We are not perfect in what we do and are not 100% sustainable, but we are not afraid to tell you about it. We consider transparency as a reminder of what is still to be achieved, and we are eager to improve whenever better sourcing and production options arise. We still face issues, just to name a few :

- We only produce new items.

- We send in single-use packaging, even if we make them 100% biodegradable and recycled. Boxes can be re-used but we know it's not that easy.

- We use virgin materials, which is why we went for a pre-oder model.

- We ship our products worldwide.

This list is just an example of things we still want to improve. 

This manifesto was designed to evolve and improve over time. And so is SOSEI.