Mill Valley resident Philippe Colmant founded ITALEAU, a conscious luxury women’s footwear brand, with one key question in mind: “How can a brand give more to its customers, to its work force, and to the world at large?”
A former software engineer for Microsoft, Colmant traveled to Italy to learn more about the handmade-in-Italy footwear industry. Adding the perspective of his experience as an engineer and his observation that many higher-end footwear brands were too narrowly focused on aesthetic while disregarding well-being and purpose, Colmant set out to deliver a solution with ITALEAU.
ITALEAU crafts intelligently designed, Italian-made, luxury footwear that combines high-end aesthetic with functionality. Named after a play on the words: ITALY + EAU, the name pays homage to the old-world craft of shoemaking learned and passed down by Italian artisans. “Eau,” meaning “water” in French, is a nod to the fact that all of ITALEAU’s shoes are water-friendly.
Soft, supple, waterproof leather, a memory foam footbed, long-lasting structure, and unwavering comfort are the hallmarks of an ITALEAU shoe.
A shoe is unique in that it supports and thus impacts the entire body. A great shoe needs to provide comfort, support optimal posture, and be durable. ITALEAU stands by the tenet that a shoe that can’t do all of these things cannot be considered truly luxurious.
A purpose-driven company, ITALEAU believes we are all citizens of the world and that we share a duty to care for our fellow human beings. To this end, ITALEAU has chosen to manufacture in Italy, where craftsmen are fairly paid and protected. The brand has also chosen to partner with Matt Damon’s organization, Water.org. With each purchase of a pair of ITALEAU shoes, a year of water is provided to an individual in the developing world.
“We embrace and support a cohesive world as our ethos, where we are mindful of how our lives and our choices impact the world around us,” says Colmant.
A product worthy of its heritage, ITALEAU’s passionately designed, responsibly handcrafted footwear marries the old-world tradition of artisan shoemaking with modern-day luxury, thoughtful aesthetic that represents an ease of living – appreciation, consciousness, simplicity and taste.
