The Journey of Aylla Barefoot Shoe: From Idea to Foot... No Censorship
Every Shoe Begins with Coffee and Pastries. Without sugar and caffeine, a good collection just isn't possible. We have experienced developers and skilled designers, but we start with an open discussion involving the entire Aylla team. We’re all in this together. Even with you. Because the greatest inspiration comes from our customers.
We Gaze Into Our Crystal Balls
We try to predict the trends for the next season and figure out what we should have started yesterday to keep up. We find that we all have a lot of crazy ideas that you would definitely fall in love with! But we must take it one step at a time…
Only Crumbs Left from the Pastries
We pick the top pieces and leave it to the shoe experts – our designers – to take the ideas and start turning them into shapes and colors. From time to time, they call in a local shoemaker who can turn a piece of leather into a real piece of art.
We buy more pastries. We have a portfolio of the most fragrant materials from Europe, and we mustn't be swept away by how good they look. Each material has a different function. Each one is ideal for a different type of shoe. We debate until we find the perfect design that won’t disappoint in practice.
We take the final sketch, send it to local production, and then go to sleep while our partners create the first prototype, and the next phase begins.
It’s Here!
The whole company (all twelve of us) huddles around one nervous shoe box, from which we pull out the first, quite confident-looking prototype. We are very honest with it and put it through a tough review. With plenty of feedback, it’s sent back to its creators, often accompanied by our designers. The number of times this cycle repeats depends on the individual model. In the testing phase, we literally put the shoes on our feet. We want to know what shoes you’ll be putting on every morning.
Let’s Multiply It
We have the final model in hand. It’s time to head to one of our factories. Some models are sewn in the Czech Republic, others by our Slovakian brothers. We meet with the team on-site, hand over the necessary information, and fine-tune the last details. Then we just watch how our initial ideas turn into reality – from cutting to precise stitching.
We’ve just described one of the main reasons why we keep production so close to home. We have the opportunity to hop into a car anytime and be part of any stage of our shoes production. And next time, we’ll take you directly to the shoemaking machines.
The journey doesn’t end with a finished pair. It never ends. The process of creating one model gives rise to more ideas and thoughts, which we start working on over time. What will the next one be?