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SHARING OUR SOUTH AFRICAN-NESS WITH THE WORLD
Our shoes are meant for everyone with dreams inside them, memories behind them, and journeys ahead of them.
And because in this whole wide world there are no two people who walk, laugh, or think exactly the same way,
our shoes are for all the individuals who are living their own beautiful, unique, stories.
They’re for everyone, but they’re also for every one. We’d love to see how you wear yours! #HowIwearMine
The history of Veldskoen shoes is as rich and diverse as the country they come from. There are various groups of people who believe the Veldskoen, or a version of it, started with them.
The word "Veldskoen", was first documented by the Dutch settlers who arrived in southern Africa almost 400 years ago. It means "field shoes." However, according to Khoisan tribal folk lore, there were leather shoes, cut from a single hide, being made and worn by the tribe, as far back as a 1000 years before that.
According to GQ magazine, Nathan Clark, of Clarks Shoes, was serving in the second world war when he noticed South African officers wearing, in his own words, “strange leather shoes”.
On further investigation, he found they were being made in a Bazaar in Cairo, commissioned by the South African officers, after their military boots had failed them. The design was sent to London where the Chukka boot craze was born.
We like to believe they all had a hand, and a foot, in the Veldskoen story! We joined the journey of, arguably the world’s oldest shoe, a little more recently.
After watching the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Nick Dreyer and Ross Zondagh were very unimpressed with the South African kit. They began imagining what the athletes could have been wearing that would have better represented South Africa
Zondagh suggested a pair of leather Vellies, because they are iconic South African shoes. Dreyer responded that most Vellies are also ugly. And so, they began chatting about ways to make our “national shoe” more attractive.
The answer came in the form of the brightly coloured soles and laces; VELDSKOEN’s trademark look today.
