Meet Ashish Kashyap and Pushpendra Singh, Uttrakhand-based luxury men’s footwear online store owners, who started their journey in 2015 from the living room of their house in Haridwar that lead to the official launch of their label TAN & TAW in March 2019. Today they’re live on their official website, with other online shopping platforms like Amazon as well. When asked about upcoming plans – they’ll soon launch their flagship stores in Uttrakhand they responded.
As India pushes its ‘Local for Vocal’ maneuvering, the footwear industry believes the country has the potential to reduce dependence on imports and cater to the domestic market by ramping up local production. Mr. Pushpendra Singh said “A shoe is not only a style, but it’s a piece of your body language, the way you step. The way you’re going to move is quite overlooked by your shoes. Determining the correct pair of shoes intensifies your attire and can remodel an ordinary look into one that stands out from the crowd”.
When asked about why only the footwear industry and from where it was started? Founders replied; “We always had a taste for premium clothing and on top of that many people would agree that you can tell a lot about a man by the shoes they carry. We invested a handsome amount in buying shoes and with every pair we buy, we realized that the more we are leaning for luxury Italian shoes the cost of shoes is getting way too high. With a curiosity to make an investment in shoes rather than just to buy them. We saw people paying extensive amounts for a pair of leather shoe. Some are just satisfied by the look of the shoes, some by the brand names, what they do not realize is that the shoes being bought are just shockingly overpriced.
Having seen a void in the Indian market for premium handcrafted luxury shoes at an affordable price, we started our journey. Having a technical background helped us to dig deeper into the technicality of making high-quality leather footwear- choosing the best leather, organic materials, and the most important craftsmen of India which keeps the ancestral art of shoe-making alive. We hired freelance designers from the country’s most reputed fashion colleges. Encouraged by the most iconic styles, we sketched our Italian designs and started crafting them. India, as a country is acknowledged for its handiworks which incorporate the Handcrafted footwear industry. We wanted to devise the most luxurious leather shoes for men without settling on the comfort of the customers. We explored the whole country just to find the best artisans as well as supplies. Also, we tried and tested samples with various insoles and developed our own thick quilted insoles, keeping comfort on high priority.
Like any rookie, we have also encountered many hurdles, but have always kept our heads high, and taking a solution-finding approach, we kept moving and are here with the most luxurious handmade shoe manufacturing brand Tan & Taw. You would often discover that leather confederates are overpriced and unaffordable. So, we decided that our collection of handcrafted leather shoes will be priced reasonably. We abandoned the old-school third-party business and marketing culture that creates additional markups on the price of footwear. We strive to provide our clients with the best handmade leather shoes at the most affordable prices”.
Asking about any customization available? Mr.Ashish Kashyap replied; ” Here at Tan & Taw, hand-carved shoes are personalized, you have many possibilities when it comes to texture and silhouette, you have the chance to create violent blends. Even if currently we can not provide customization, our handcrafted shoes give users lots of options to buy from. Using high-quality material makes our shoes extremely enduring in usage and any kind of wear and tear. When you decide to buy a pair of shoes, the main aspect to analyze is the span these shoes will last. Hand-made shoes are crafted with high-quality material, will stand the test of time, and are worthy of the money invested in them. “The footwear industry is broadly scattered across the country. We need to focus on developing a hub model that will also help strengthen the Indian footwear industry,” Mr. Kashyap added.
