The Atelier · Manufacture

Private label manufacturing, from tech pack to boxed pair

Izmir, Türkiye · Third generation at the bench

We develop and produce leather footwear under your label. Children's and baby barefoot is our speciality, cemented and Strobel are our two lines, and one hundred pairs per style is where we start. What follows is not a brochure — it is what a project looks like from your side of the table, in the order you will meet it.

What we make

Our speciality is premium leather barefoot footwear for children and babies, EU 18–36, every size in between. Decades at the bench mean the range does not stop there: women's and men's barefoot, leather slippers and classic constructions are all made here.

Two constructions run in-house, from first pattern to boxed pair — cemented and Strobel. If you are not sure which your shoe wants, that decision has its own guide; it is usually settled early, alongside the last and the materials.

Briefs that fall outside our benches are not turned into promises. They go to our advisory arm, which finds and vets the right specialist producer in Türkiye and stays accountable for the project. Saying "we can do that" about a bench we do not have is how a first order becomes a last one.

Three ways a project starts

Brands arrive at very different stages, and none of the three below is too early to write to us.

With a full tech pack. The fastest route. We read it, tell you what is and is not producible as drawn, and go to sampling.
With reference images and a target retail price. The most common route. The retail figure is the useful part — it sets the material and construction budget, and we build the tech pack with you from there.
With a sketch and an idea. The longest route, and the one we were built for. Last, pattern and sole unit are developed from scratch; the first barefoot collection of more than one label was built this way.

Not sure which of the three you are? Send what you have — a photo of a shoe you like is enough to start.

Write to the atelier →

How a project runs

Timings below are ours, not industry averages. Where a step depends on your style, it says so rather than guessing.

Brief and feasibility — within 24 hours. You hear back from the factory, not a sales desk: whether we can make it, what it hangs on, and which of the decisions below will move your price.
The last — existing or new. An existing last puts sampling at €100–150 and saves weeks. A new last, carved to your brief, is €200–250 and adds development time. For barefoot this is rarely a small decision: the last is the shoe's anatomy.
Pattern, leather and components. Patterns are drawn in-house. Leather comes from LWG Gold-rated tanneries — any article you want, with the tannery's certificate supplied for every order. Outsoles, threads and reinforcements come from the industry's best, wherever they are.
Sampling — 2–4 weeks per round. Plan for two rounds. Collections that go through in one exist, but they are the exception, and a schedule built on that assumption slips.
Your approval. Nothing enters production before you have held the sample and said yes. This is the point of no return, deliberately placed in your hands.
Production — 4–8 weeks. From confirmed order and approved sample. Where you land in that range depends on volume, construction and how many components have to travel.
Inspection, then the balance. Thirty per cent deposit at order; the remaining seventy once you have inspected the finished run. In that order, on purpose.
EXW Izmir. Turkish export clearance and the A.TR certificate are ours to issue. With an A.TR there is no EU import duty under the customs union — import VAT still applies in your country.

The five things that set your price

Unit price is the one figure we will not put on a page, and it is worth being precise about why. Two shoes that look alike can differ by a third. These are what move it:

The leather article and its consumption — not just which hide, but how much of it your pattern wastes
The sole unit — bought in, or built for you from scratch
The construction — cemented and Strobel do not cost the same to run
The component count — every extra piece is an extra operation
Size range and volume — EU 18–36 across one style is not the same job as half of it

Send a tech pack, or reference images and a target retail price, and this stops being a range and becomes a number.

What we carry so you do not

EU children's safety. REACH, chrome-VI and mechanical safety are handled at the bench, not discovered at the border.
Tannery documentation. The certificate for the leather in your order comes with the order, every time.
Testing, when your buyer asks for it. Testing is arranged per project, on request, at the accredited laboratory you choose. We prepare and submit the paperwork; the laboratory invoices you directly and issues the report in your brand's name. We hold no blanket certificate and claim no partnership with any testing house.
Export. Clearance and the A.TR certificate, issued by us.

What we will not do

A short list, because it saves both of us a month.

Under 100 pairs per style. Colourways count together, not separately — three colourways of one style reach the minimum between them. Below that, the development cost has nowhere to go.
Quote a unit price before we know the shoe. A number given without the five inputs above is a number that changes later, and that is worse than no number.
Promise a bench we do not have. Constructions beyond cemented and Strobel go through the advisory arm to a vetted specialist — with us still accountable — rather than being quietly accepted here.

Who is at the bench

PRO.SHOE.LAB was founded by Alexandra and Orhan, a married couple. Orhan's grandfather began making shoes in Izmir in the 1950s, which makes Orhan a third-generation shoemaker — trained at the bench rather than in seminars. Seventy years later the discipline is unchanged: honest materials, patient construction, and a refusal to ship a pair we would not put on our own children.

Client names are under NDA; the work is not. The house has been making shoes since the 1950s, the focus has been barefoot for the last ten years, and hundreds of independent lasts developed at this bench have gone into production. The record sets out what that looked like project by project.

Tell us what you are making

A tech pack, a reference photo, or a sentence about the idea — all three are a fine place to start. From 100 pairs per style, with a reply within 24 hours.

Start a project