OLOW x KLEMAN

A collaboration is often about encounters and feelings. For this one, it happened between part of the Olow team and the Cléon grandsons, who now run Kleman.

Lecture en 9 minutes

OLOW x KLEMAN

Collaborations
"A collaboration is often a story of meeting and feeling. This one took place between part of the OLOW team and the Cléon grandsons who now hold the reins of Kleman."
On the one hand, we have a brand rooted in artistic creation, and on the other, one with an impressive heritage, both in its history and its know-how. Over the course of excited discussions, a shared taste for ethical and human values emerged, but also one for rock ’n’ roll and absurd humour.
KLEMAN is above all a family affair...
A shoemaker and bootmaker by trade, René Cléon served during the Second World War and was taken prisoner in 1940 during the Battle of France. He spent five years in captivity in a Stalag in Germany, where he continued to model small leather shoes in his spare time. When the war ended in 1945, he assembled a team of apprentices and bought his first machines. The story began in his family home in La Romagne, western France. A few years later, a factory was built just behind it, specialising in sewn, mixed Kneipp models. His sons, Jacques and Louis-Marie, took up the torch and diversified the activity in the 1970s and 1980s.
They launched their brand, KLEMAN, in 1988, focusing on the production of work shoes for professional use, and notably equipped railway workers and the French air force.
"The brand, whose products are still manufactured exclusively in France in their workshop in Anjou, turns professional footwear into stylish and timeless accessories."
The artwork on the insole was created by English artist Miles Tewson, in his studio in the rainy and atypical city of Bristol, UK. This pattern, depicting the ocean using the artist’s minimalist touch, allows us to incorporate more broadly this collaboration into our Fall-Winter collection, ”Aquatic Life”.
"To wear the Padror and Olan models, resulting from the symbiosis of the two brands, is to promote local production and limitless creative freedom."
Discover the collab

You might also like