Veldskoen Shoes (PTY) Ltd

THE VELDSKOEN BRAND
After watching the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Nick Dreyer and Ross Zondagh were fairly unimpressed with the South African kit. They began imagining what the athletes could have been wearing that would have better represented South Africa.

Zondagh suggested a pair of leather Veldskoen, because they are iconic South African shoes. Dreyer responded that most Veldskoen weren’t exactly fashionable. And so, they began chatting about ways to make the shoe more attractive

The answer came in the form of the brightly coloured soles and laces; Veldskoen’s trademark look today.

THE ORIGINAL “VELDSKOEN”
The history of Veldskoen shoes is as rich and diverse as the country they come from. There are various groups of people who believe the Veldskoen, or a version of it, started with them.

The word "Veldskoen", was first documented by the Dutch settlers who arrived in Southern Africa almost 400 years ago. It means "field shoes." However, according to Khoisan tribal folklore, there were leather shoes, cut from a single hide, being made and worn by the tribe, as far back as 1000 years before that.

According to GQ magazine, Nathan Clark, of Clarks Shoes, was serving in the second world war when he noticed South African officers wearing, in his own words, “strange leather shoes”.

We like to believe they all had a hand, and a foot, in the Veldskoen story! We joined the journey of arguably the world’s oldest shoe, a little more recently.