Even though it’s not far from the beach at Table View, where you'll find postcard views across Table Bay to the city and mountain, the industrial suburb of Paarden Eiland doesn’t appear on the to-do list of many visitors to Cape Town. Filled mostly with factories and builder’s yards, that’s not surprising.
But one gutsy young South African company is hoping that might change, with the opening of a mini-museum to one of South Africa’s unsung icons, the humble veldskoen, or ‘vellie’. Traditionally made of rawhide leather on a rubber sole, veldskoen –pronounced FELT-skoon – are as South African as braaivleis, biltong and the ‘Bokke'.
Now wind the clock back to 2016. While watching athletes parade through the stadium at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Nick Dreyer and Ross Zondagh bemoaned the lacklustre outfits worn by the South African team. Surely they could find something better? Something more proudly South African. One suggestion led to another and the Veldskoen brand was born.
With a range of colourfully-soled veldskoen decked in bright laces, they launched their online store in 2016, and the world quickly took notice. Prince Harry was snapped wearing a pair and Matthew McConaughey became a fan. They grew a footprint in the United Kingdom and Europe, added new ranges, and with investment from Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher launched Veldskoen into the American market. Today up to 150,000 items of Veldskoen shoes and apparel fly out of the warehouse each year.
But it all comes back to the humble street in Paarden Eiland, Cape Town, where Nick, Ross and their team of staff run the business (although the shoe factory is in Durban) and share the story of how a humble shoe took on the world.
The opening of a dedicated museum-style exhibition, alongside a retail section, traces the long history of leather hide shoes in Africa, from those worn by the earliest San hunter-gatherers through to the Wupperthal veldskoen factory deep in the Cederberg mountains.
Through a series of panels, videos and exhibits the museum tracks the outsize impact of the veldskoen, the name referring to both the leather it’s made from (vel, in Afrikaans) and the shoe’s popularity out in the bush (the veld).
The exhibition tells how the veldskoen provided the blueprint for the iconic Clark’s Desert Boot, famously beloved of Jamaica’s ‘rude boys’, and how it’s made it as far as the catwalks of Paris Fashion Week. There’s even an original pair of iconic bright red vellies worn by beloved local folk singer David Kramer.
‘We want people to understand the story of veldskoens, and the pride we take in them, rather than just buying a product,’ says Dreyer. ‘We wanted to document the story of veldskoens, and provide people with an opportunity to experience our products.’
Because like all good museums, there’s a shop attached, and here you can browse and admire the brand’s range of shoes. Because if you’re going to head out and explore Cape Town, and South Africa, you might as well be doing it in a pair of vellies.
Already stepping out in vellies? Check out our other favourite shops in Cape Town.