Article by Cyrine Dufaux
Just outside Porto, in a small town you probably haven’t heard of, something is happening: quietly, carefully, and with a lot of craft. We spent a few days in Portugal visiting factories with APICCAPS, the association behind the country’s booming footwear industry. This is Portugal: not the romantic cliché, but the engine room. Here, under the guidance of the Portuguese Footwear Association, 1,500 companies quietly produce 80 million pairs of shoes a year!
Carité: one factory, many worlds
Our first stop was Carité, where the same hands that make shoes for labels such as Doc Martens, Axel Arigato, and Calvin Klein, among others. The factory also creates custom, made-to-order pieces for runway shows. Most recently? Willy Chavarria. The American designer did not hesitate to trust the Portuguese savoir-faire behind Mariano Shoes (part of APICCAPS) to produce the shoes for his SS26 runway show.
What’s surprising about Carité is the range. In one location, there is the design studio, the atelier/factory, as well as an entire showroom of diverse footwear: sneakers, everyday boots, more elevated designs, and safety footwear. Everything is made under one roof.
Also, something is grounding about seeing a pair of shoes in progress, with one person sewing the upper, another adjusting the heel height, and a third ensuring everything lines up. Portugal has the people and the setup to do it all, and APICCAPS is bringing it together. Whether it’s a global luxury house or an independent designer, the result is the same: real craftsmanship and the ability to take on projects of any scale.
To work for: built to protect
Next, we visited To Work For, which specialises in safety footwear, the kind people wear to work on construction sites, in warehouses, in places where every detail matters. This isn’t fashion for show, it’s fashion that protects.
Here, everything is about performance. Each shoe goes through tests: pressure, grip, fire resistance, water, all of it. What makes this setup special is that the factory includes its own testing lab, so nothing needs to be shipped off for certification. The whole process happens here, from start to finish.
There’s a kind of beauty in this, too. The shoes may look tough, but the care that goes into making them is no different from what we saw at Carité. It’s another side of the same story.
Innovation center: what’s next!
Our final stop was APICCAPS’ Creative Innovation Center, a space that feels like part lab, part classroom, part future studio. The goal here is simple: keep the spirit of Portuguese shoemaking alive by making sure young people see it, understand it, and want to be part of it. They host workshops for schools, run visits, and open up their process so the next generation can learn how a shoe is made…and maybe dream up new ways of doing it!
There’s also a lot of experimentation happening here: new materials, colour treatments on embroidery, 3D textile printing, and other techniques that push the boundaries while aiming to stay sustainable.
This is a reminder that innovation isn’t always about speed or tech, sometimes it’s about sharing knowledge, exploring new techniques, and letting creativity take the lead.
Final thoughts…
Portugal doesn’t shout about what it’s doing. But when you walk through these spaces, from the design studios, factories, to testing floors, you get it. The shoes are good. The people are better. And the vision? It’s clear.
Made in Europe isn’t just a label. It’s a process. A decision. A commitment.