In my brief years of following the bespoke shoe industry, many brands have disappeared, both internationally and domestically. Some vanished due to the passing of their founders, like Riccardo Bestetti; some due to poor management, like Alfred Sargent/Paul Sargent; and some just quietly faded away without much explanation, like Common in China.
Mattina hasn’t disappeared—it’s still around, just living in a way completely different from before, barely hanging on.
Everything in this article comes from my interaction with the Mattina brand and its former team, but I won’t share any sensitive information because I haven’t been authorized to. Also, it might be biased and not entirely fair or comprehensive, more like a memoir.
I first came into contact with Mattina, and I found this store on Taobao. I think the aesthetics are really advanced, especially the N-last. Even today, I think it is one of the best works of domestic brands.
But in fact, my contact was still late, because before I went to Taobao, Mattina made a batch of goods for a suit shop, which was later Brahams, the monk with a big bald head, and the sales price was quite cheap, around 1400, and even there was a discount.
I didn’t know that, but I just put Mattina in the article “Domestic leather shoes are worth buying”, which made me a KOL of leather shoes (I didn’t expect the popularity of the article, and I didn’t care).
Soon, the head of Mattina’s marketing department contacted me. In the circle, many people know him, Master Chicken (a diehard fan of Beijing Guoan).
The first time we met was in Nanjing. He came to Nanjing on business and sent me a pair of shoes, which became Mattina’s core sales model, Elgar, vegan triple joint Oxford.
At the same time, he told me not to promote Mattina in a hurry, because they have not been completely straightened out. This let me learn a lot from Mattina’s original team, which is a big factory style, planning, making a decision before moving.
In the same period, I should also send a lot of kols, such as ENP. I have to say that my affinity with Krypton really depends on Mattina.
Mattina’s pricing at that time was 1880, and it slowed down to 1980,2180 in the later period. This pricing, with a slogan, is “young people’s first pair of leather shoes”. Although it is much higher than that of Red Dragonfly Aokang, the right people, that is, young people who are pursuing texture and quality, know the concept of Goodyear shoes, and this price is really sweet point.
Mattina’s development is very rapid, and in a short period of time, it has become the brand with the highest flow of domestic sewing shoes. It can be said that no one in the circle knows everyone, and its sales volume is undoubtedly outstanding. (Of course, it can’t be compared with outside brands like Thom Wills and Truffaut. And Mattina’s products are also very competitive and can withstand such sales.
It is impossible to say that there are no defective products of any brand, or that every product can be stopped by the factory quality inspection, so it is not that Mattina has no shoes sprayed, but the whole is absolutely positive.
This is going to talk about Mattina’s production, which is also the root cause of all the creative teams leaving later.
Why are Mattina’s shoes so aesthetically high? Because Zhao Ruoda. In fact, Jiang Daoyuan, the founder of Badia, also contributed to the development of Mattina products at the beginning, which is why many of Badia’s products at the beginning were Mattina’s different labels, because the design is the same and the production is the same.
Zhao Ruoda and Jiang Daoyuan are the same-time students of Stefano Bemer Studio in Florence, Italy, and they have been working in the bespoke team for several years. Both aesthetic and production skills are extremely solid. Mattina’s N last and C last are said to have been modified by Stefano Bemer’s mother last. But I don’t particularly agree with this statement, because in my eyes, their similarity is extremely low, and even their aesthetic preferences are completely different.
And the production end, it is handed over to Mars.
Mars is the best Goodyear shoe craft factory in China, located in Taicang. Weiping Wu, the founder, originally worked in Japan’s Union Works, and later persuaded his Japanese boss that the production cost in China was lower, so he returned to China to set up the Mars factory. At first, I didn’t participate in too much market competition, but only produced shoes for Union Works. Later, because of its excellent cost performance (quality and cost) and fast delivery and production capacity, many Japanese brands came to use Mars OEM. In the later period, Japan Rieger rented a production line of Mars and produced it in China.
Mattina brand was established after Zhao Ruoda returned to China, and made a decision together with a few friends, Mr. Chicken mentioned just now, and the elephant in charge of planning, with the aim of helping Mars factory to fill the lost capacity with the decline of export competitiveness (many Japanese brands choose to OEM in Southeast Asia). It must be correct to walk on two legs. For example, the brand Carlos Santos in Portugal currently accounts for less than 10% of the total turnover of the factory, but it is also a backup plan.
Chicken has a strong ability to connect in series, and soon reached a strategic cooperation with the Italian shoe brand Vibram. It was at this activity that I met Xiao Sankry, and I also met Chen Hua, Pei Jia (the founder of Iron Boots) and Wen Tao (the best cobbler in China) for the first time.
Nowadays, many brands are using the heel of Vibram. If you have a chance to open the back, it says Mattina.
But here I want to explain that this product is named after Mattina, not that this product belongs to Mattina, otherwise other brands can’t be used.
In 2021, the first China Trunk Show held by me, Mattina arranged the largest booth, and joined forces with Virgin, the agent of Hermè s Leather Department in China, to produce Elgar made of HCP crocodile skin, and used Saphir’s dyes to create on the spot.
Then, in the God-wearing cycling held by Dr. Justice, Mattina won an oversized booth and launched a co-branded shoe with cycling activities.
On the sales side, in addition to Taobao, Mattina also sells in Roiluxe, realizing online and offline synchronization, and has entities in Beijing and Shanghai.
After the cooperation with Roiluxe, an independent brand store was opened in Anfu Road. Here, the clerk is the later custom shoemaker Huang Yan.
It can be said that one step at a time, Mattina’s brand value is constantly accumulating and improving.
Then, it collapsed.
All the creative teams have left, not one left, from Zhao Ruoda, who is in charge of products, Chicken Ye, who is in charge of front-end outreach, and Elephant, who is in charge of planning.
“The past few years have been all for nothing. It’s really fucking uncomfortable.”
Because of what? The interests of the main creative team and Ma Shi are inconsistent, but an idealistic idea in the early stage found itself without any guarantee in the later stage.
After the lack of outstanding talents, Mattina instantly became a seller on Taobao, while selling goods on the Internet, at this price, without even thinking about it.
Seeing such a screenshot sent to me, I can only sigh.
