I love Kickstarter! Not just because it helps me to find the latest brands and labels from around the world to blog on New Labels Only but it is also an important platform to help campaigns and projects which have a very important cause.

Without Kickstarter, I would not have discovered Juta Shoes. Eventhough New Labels Only is based in London, I still did not know that Juta Shoes are also based in London too, around 1 hours away from NLO.

So lets talk about Juta Shoes. If you follow New Labels Only on instagram, you would have seen a couple of gorgeous Juta Shoes images and they have been receiving a lot of love too.

Juta Shoes is an ethical and sustainable social enterprise who produce espadrilles and slippers in London. However they are not your usual type of enterprise, all the espadrilles and slippers produced are made by socially isolated and underemployed women in London, Tower Hamlets, where one quarter of the residents face hardships.

Where did the idea of Juta Shoes come from?

Juta Shoes was started by Sabeha Miah and Joanna Hammer. Joanna is a very keen crafter with a fascination of product design, recycling and upcycling technology, and testing through making. Sabeha, has been running The Boundary Women’s Project at St Hilda’s for ten years, a place where local women encouraged o realise their own potential, especially individuals experiencing social exclusion or minority ethnic women facing language barriers.

Joanna attented a Year Here Bootcamp where she found out that 70% of women’s community groups in London faced funding cuts and that, in an era of increasing rents and austerity, organisations like St Hilda’s would struggle to find enough money to keep providing their much-needed services.

To help provide help maintain provide alternative funding, Joanna and Sabeha, who met through a mentor, co founded Juta Shoes.

Helping marginalised women

Personally I’m loving my espadrilles. This my first ever espadrilles and they are really awesome.

All the shoes are made by the women at The Boundary Women’s Project at St Hilda’s, which take around 2 hours to make one pair and they are paid fair living wage. In addition of improving their production skills, the women also get to improve their business skills with managing and handling invoices.

All the profits that Juta Shoes make are re invested back in the community. The profits are used on project-based employability skills like design, customer service, marketing and administration. By providing these valuable skills, these women can become independent and provide a living for themselves and also their family.

One more thing, it also provides lonely women at home a place to socialise and also meet new people, especially if the women are new to the country or the area, this will definitely help the to intergrate in the community and country better.

Really loving Juta Shoes mission!

So how good are the espadrilles?

I’ve had mine for a week now and personally I’ve been enjoying it. It is very comfortable and I’m not going to lie you, they make my feet POP!

The Our soles are made of jute, an eco-friendly material, which is woven, pressed, and vulcanised at a family-run factory in southern Spain, which are really comfortable.

The upper part is made from leather. The leather from local London leather factories, by taking the offcuts from larger designs. We save these scraps from landfill, and give them second life as shoes!

The thick rubberised soles are water-resistant, supportive and comfortable, while the leather uppers are treated with a waterproofing wax.

You know how much New Labels Only loves sustainable and ethical fashion!

The espadrilles are unisex and are design for all type of occasions. It’s minimalistic look and bold colour really looks the part. I wore mine with skinny blue jeans and I looked good. With summer around the corner, I can’t wait to wear it with shorts.

What do you guys think about the look below?

After a successful Kickstarter Campaign, Juta Shoes are now fully operational. They have different type of material for the upper part of the espadrilles and the slippers including vegan leather, silver leather, furry leather and vegan sheepskin.

I will definitely encourage you to visit Juta Shoes and do check out their range of espadrilles and slippers. Their website is http://www.jutashoes.com/

I would like to thank Juta Shoes for everything and especially for the beautiful, awesome and magnificient espadrilles.

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