KDH1932
Brand Creation & Creative Direction
The Kandahar shoe manufactory was founded in 1932 in Mürren, when Fritz von Allmen laid the first stone for a Swiss success story. Today, Kandahar is a brand recognized throughout Switzerland, offering not only its cult winter shoes but also selected leather-lined shoes.
The Kandahar shoe manufactory is still proudly in the private ownership of the founding family and is now managed in the third generation by Manuel von Allmen. Together with his business partner Mariano Sulmoni, who took over creative management in September 2017, the young managing directors are working on modernising the brand. Mariano is currently working on the worldwide expansion of the Manufacture and, together with his design team, is creating the models of tomorrow.
Currently, the brand‘s nationwide sales network includes over 150 retailers, and it also runs a factory boutique at its production site in Thun.
At Kandahar Shoe Manufacture, quality, timelessness and swissness are the key words. With two collections a year and several collaborations, Mariano continues to design each collection himself and works with his design team on the realization of the shoes. He maintains a close relationship with the Manufacture‘s long-standing suppliers and travels to Italy every season to personally select the materials used to make his creations.
The brand and Mariano are known for their original, creative flair and timeless, classic style, which can always offer something new to loyal customers.
„All around the world, Swiss products stand for quality and luxury. Characteristics that also distinguish our shoes. In order to be able to present our craft and our manufacture to a wider national and international audience and to expand with our brand, we are pleased to announce that we will be part of the Mode Suisse* platform beginning this autumn. With this new collaboration, I would like to show that we are much more than just a brand for winter footwear. All the people in our factory work at the highest level and are very talented. This is why we are launching a Concept Collection for Mode Suisse Edition 18 under the newly created brand KDH1932. The high-quality, one-off productions do not follow any of the manufactory‘s previous rules and stand out for their special design. However, long-standing connoisseurs of our brand will certainly recognize an homage to old times in many models,“ says Mariano Sulmoni, Chief Virtuoso of the Kandahar shoe manufactory.
With this new collaboration, the small manufactory on Lake Thun in Switzerland is focusing on a new sales segment: the concept shoes presented at Mode Suisse will be handmade to order as one-offs for a select clientele. All KDH1932 models meet the highest quality standards and are strictly limited in production. To ensure that all lovers of the brand can enjoy these new models, the concept shoes presented at Mode Suisse will be derived into production-ready models, which customers can then find in the well-known Kandahar collections.
MUSEUM FÜR GESTALTUNG ZÜRICH
In conjunction with the Wild Things exhibition that runs from December 11, 2020 to May 23, 2021, two designs, SAEVA TWO and ALTAE, from Mariano Sulmoni's KDH1932 collection have been selected and exhibited by the museum.
THE COLLECTION
