OK- the short answer or the long one....?
The short one:
Here at Marté, we believe in corporate transparency and ethical supply chains so we believe that in the ginormous and opaque world of online retail, we want to give our customers the confidence that the shoes they purchase from us have a completely clear supply chain and we are honest about our values and who we are.
The long one:
My name is Victoria Angus and I have spent decades in the fashion industry and to quote Lisa Stansfield, been around the world (sorry!) and seen footwear factories from China to Brazil to Italy. I've witnessed first-hand the way the footwear industry operates and the working conditions and standards in different parts of the globe, the good, the bad and the ugly.
There are some amazing factories around the world- really striving to do the right thing in terms of the environmental impact of the components they use, and the safety and security of the workers they employ, but they are too few- mainly due to the constant price pressures put upon those factories by their customers who are always driven by profit profit profit.
I don't want to sit and preech, as I am a business woman, and sales targets and margin are obviously crucial to the success of a business, but I believe there is a balance to strike and this balance is the wrong way for a lot of the products we desire.
So, during a balmy summer lockdown and after a fun afternoon of teaching my 7 year old about fronted adverbials (anyone..?) I decided to create what I had always been seeking myself. A footwear brand that is honest and can be trusted to be clear about its products and practices, from the components the shoes are made of, to the leathers used for the uppers, to the packaging used to send the shoes to our wonderful customers, and I called it Marté.