Oliberté is an urban-casual footwear company recommended to us to feature by a reader a few days ago. It seems to be a company that unapologetically derives its inspiration from a desire to use its products to tell a different story about Africa.
According to the company “During a revolt, when rebels finally gain their freedom, they take the country’s most important symbol, the flag, and rip out the middle stating that a new beginning is here.”
In that spirit of rebelliousness, even though Oliberté is headquarted in Ontario (Canada), its range of footwear are exclusively produced using rubber from Liberia, leather sourced from Ethiopia where the shoes are manufactured.
Oliberté also has this to say on their website “The average animals used for most leather in other parts of the world only live for about a year. These animals (cow, sheep, goat) are typically injected with hormones to speed up their development, so that they can be used for meat or leather much sooner than would naturally be possible. As such, because hormone-injected animals are put under so much bodily stress to stretch and grow, the leather is generally much heavier and and not as soft.
However, in Ethiopia, where we make our shoes and source our leather, these same animals provide local farmers with their livelihoods for many years. The cows and goats continue to provide milk to farmers and their families and only near the end of their natural lives, are the animals used for other income-generating activities such as meat or leather.
The average animal used in making Oliberté shoes has lived on average 5-6 years more than similar animals in other parts of the world, and has not been caged or stressed. As such, each of our shoes is made with the most natural leather available in Africa, and this is what makes it soft and light.
Ethiopia has the largest amount of livestock in Africa, and it and its leather has the potential to bring enormous opportunities to all Ethiopians. Oliberté is about building a better Africa through footwear and that means using resources that are locally available AND that provide the best opportunity for better-wages and better quality of life for Ethiopians and all Africans. This is our leather. This is Africa. This is Oliberté!”
