INVESTING IN QUALITY
30TH ANNIVERSARY SERIES
Bosabo is a brand with true family heritage. Located in Brittany, France, BOSABO was established in the 1890’s when Emile Audouin bundled up his tools and went from farm to farm to hand-carve tailor made wooden clogs for the farmers on site. Over a century later, the company is operating today under the direction of Joel Audouin, Emile’s great great grandson, and his wife Françoise. It is the only remaining workshop in France specializing in the manufacture of clogs. The company counts more than 150 styles of shoes in its range today; including slides, clogs, low and high heeled sandals, and even low rise boots. But the DNA of the company remains the same.
Bosabo - Rita
GP: When was the brand founded?
JA: The company started in 1890 when my great grandfather began his work as a clogs maker (originally in wood). The brand name Bosabo was created around 1920/1930, at this time we only made traditional clogs for local markets. Around 1990, we developed the Bosabo brand for the international market, especially in Japan. Thanks to international fairs, now Bosabo is distributed all over the world. We are still a family company for 5 generations, now I hope that my children Justine and Alexis will continue this story!
What is your favourite part of the design process?
To draw the new design directly onto the last, it’s a good approach to achieve the final design.
Why did you start designing footwear?
Since both of my parents were already working for Bosabo, it was quite natural for me to continue on with the family business.
How do you define quality?
For us the quality is really important. Starting with our choice of premium raw materials. We only select leathers from well-known tanneries in France, Italy and Spain. We are lucky to have all our operations internal, so it is easy for us to supervise the quality of our products. Our employees have a very high level of craftsmanship, we try to share this knowledge to new generations of artisans.
What is special about the production of your brand?
We are a small family run company with 12 employees, all of our operations are completed in our 2 workshops : 1 dedicated to the wooden sole production and 1 for the shoes / sandals fabrication.
Bosabo - Rita
Who is your favourite author or musician?
It is difficult to name one, but what I can say is that I love to go to Hellfest (10 min walk from my home) which is a festival where I can see a lot of bands from my “youth”.
What do you like to do when you’re not working?
I like riding my motorcycle around our beautiful seaside not so far from where we are.
