By: Gaela Braun

FEIT SHOES

Feit, the brainchild of Tull Price, is launching its first luxury retail collection this spring. After a year and a half of exclusively servicing customers and retailers through the online platform FeitDirect.com—with the exception of the Sydney Feit store—partnerships are now in the works with retailers in several cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Tokyo.

Founded in 2005 as a response to a bottom line-driven industry focused on mass-produced products, a far cry from the traditional art of shoemaking, Feit offers its customers footwear of the highest quality by focusing on craftsmanship. “From 1996 till 2004, as my former business Royal Elastics, now under the ownership of K-Swiss, grew, the operation and goals of the business became more and more compromised and I lost more and more control of the company,” says founder and creative director Tull Price, who partners with his brother Josh on the brand. Feit evolved out of that experience and was built to change the status quo.

All Feit products are handmade by one of a team of twenty shoemakers, who personally sign each of their creations. Customers even receive images of their purchases through the several stages of production, including the cutting of the material and the sewing. “Our customers range from sneakerheads, who have grown up (a bit), to design-conscious individuals, all of whom appreciate a high-quality product,” says Price. To further open up the process to individual customers, each completed sample is posted online before production even begins. Consumers can pre-order a shoe right away, instead of waiting until it reaches retail. Each sample is subject to maximum capacity, which is based on material stock levels; only once maximum capacity is reached does production begin.

The inspiration behind the Spring 2012 collection, as with all other Feit creations, is construction, materials, and minimal design. A last of exceptional quality is the cornerstone of each product. “A last should be thought of as the soul of a shoe,” says Price. “In the late ’90s, while working in a town in Italy outside of Venice, I met a man who I refer to as Verdichio Padrone. At that time, he must have been around seventy years old.” Padrone and his family have been making lasts for some of the finest Italian shoe companies for generations. “When I started Feit, the aim was to build sneakers with more of a dress sensibility. Padrone had a great sense of style and seemed like the perfect person for that job, so I went back to find him.”

Another hallmark of Feit designs are three major construction techniques—the Hand Sewn Goodyear, the Hand Sewn Stitchdown, and the Traditional Moccasin. For example, the Spring collection, which comprises three new styles and colors, introduces the Hand Sewn Superclean style in both a low- and a high-top version. For this unusual construction, Feit adapted the Goodyear technique, usually reserved for only the best men’s dress shoes or hiking boots, and combined it with the heel construction of a Moccasin, in the shape and feel of a classic court sport sneaker.

All materials used in this collection are natural Italian vegetable leathers containing minimal dyes, chemicals, and pigments. “I focus on leathers that are as close to their natural state as possible—the benefits of this are many for both the person wearing the product and the environment,” says Price of his comfortable and biodegradable products. “The leather breathes as it does in nature. It is non-irritating, soft to the touch, ages richly over time, and all the while has minimal impact to the planet,” he explains. All Feit shoes are designed to be worn barefoot, which makes them the perfect accessory for Spring or Summer.

Feit Reconnaissance Hand Sewn shoes for Spring 2012 are available for pre-order now at FeitDirect.com.

By: Gaela Braun

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