Mauban handcrafts extraordinary boots for everyday heroes. The shoe house, led by founder Edouard Quinchon, makes just a couple of hundred of semi-bespoke boots each year, since each pair takes three months to create.

Quinchon's quest to make the perfect men's boot began just a few short years ago when he stumbled upon a pair of exquisite balmorals that had once belonged to his late great-grandfather. Overcome with admiration for the clean lines and expert craftsmanship so evident in these old world-style shoes, Quinchon quit his job as a civil servant and opened Mauban in homage to his ancestral name. And what an homage it turned out to be.

He dusted off old machines, which had been rusting away during his whole lifetime in a studio in Cholet, the French capital of footwear, to obtain the optimal quality for his work. All his bottines is not only Goodyear welted but triple sewn: the gemming plus the welt and the outsole.

Mauban's timeless made-to-measure footwear so far include variously coloured classic Balmoral Boots, Blitz Boots and Oxford Shoes, and unique designs made on adapted standard lasts are created for each customer.

Every single component that goes into a Mauban shoe is made in France: leather soles are slowly vegetable tanned in Armendarits; boxcalf leather comes from the Puy-en-Velay Tannerie; lasts are handmade by Cholet's final lastmaker; the thread is manufactured by a family in Tourcoing; the shoes themselves are handcrafted in Chemillé by the last independent atelier; even the boots' wooden boxes are handmade in Saint-Émilion. More than 20.000 jobs have been cut in the handcrafted shoe sector in France since 1990. One of Edouard's missions is to give life back to the most beautiful French craftsmanship - shoemaking.