• Footwear manufacturing: skillfully hand-made by a small family-run shoe factory in Ukraine. The employees are on fair wages, have comfortable working conditions and maintain a positive working culture.
• Leather in footwear upper: sourced from certified tanneries in Ukraine. The cattle was primarily used for meat production, hence the leather is a by-product, which is recycled for footwear production.
• Soles: the leather is sourced in Tuscany, Italy and shaped into a sole by a trusted producer in Turkey. The rubber inserts in the sole use industrial recyclable rubber.
• Accessories manufacturing: we engaged a boutique-quality leather jackets and bags manufacturer in Ukraine, which employs disadvantaged women. The boutique normally throws away at least a ton of high quality leather scraps of various colours per year. Now they use these scraps to produce Cleverstein quality accessories.
• Fabric in accessories: we use virgin scrap from various handbag and clothing brands to make our accessories. Read i sign under each accessory in the customization tool to see what scrap material is used.
• Accessory components: we use some decorative components in the accessories like gemstones, wood and metal charms. These are sourced in China from certified manufacturers.
• Adhesives: we use certified water-based adhesives to produce shoes uppers. The adhesives are made either in Poland or Italy and are compliant with all EU safety standards.
• Hook and loop: we use the strongest available hook&loop attachments to connect accessories to the shoes. They are sourced from Turkey and are fully certified. In the future, we aim to use recycled-plastic or biodegradable hook&loop.
• Dustbags and storage capsules: at the moment, we use cotton for our shoes and accessories dustbags and storage capsules. By 2020 we plan to transition to organic cotton or another environmentally friendlier option.
• Packaging: we use recycled cardboard and kraft paper for shoe boxes, which are made in Ukraine. Accessories boxes are made in Ukraine at the moment with non-recycled cardboard, but we are in the process of changing the supplier for a more sustainable option. We use recycled cardboard boxes, recycled stuffing paper, and biodegradable tape sourced in the UK.