Brand Spotlight: Carmina Shoemaker

Background

Carmina Shoemaker is a Spanish shoemaker with both men's and women's shoe lines. Carmina was founded in 1997 by José Albaladejo Pujadas, his wife Carmina, after whom the company is named, and several of their children.

The Albaladejo family has a long history of shoe making dating back over a hundred years. José's great-grandfather was Matías Pujadas, who started making shoes on Mallorca in 1866. Later, in 1905, Matías Pujadas, José's grandfather, opened a factory for Goodyear welted shoes.

In 1961 José created the brand "Albaladejo", which grew to sell over 1 million shoes a year; but in the 1990s the luxury shoe market was in decline and eventually Matías decided to found Carmina. While other members of the family founded Meermin. source

Construction & Materials

Carmina specializes in goodyear welted leather shoes in both their men's and women's lines. As far as I know all their shoes are made in Mallorca using techniques which you can see on this page. They also produce goodyear welted handsewn moccasin style shoes.

A number of different leathers sourced from various tanneries. A number of MTOs through resellers will use more exotic or special leathers. Common leather types used include calfskin and suede and notably boots and shoes made using Horween shell cordovan in a variety of colours including:

Left to Right: Cognac, Ruby, Cuero, Bordeaux, Black, Olive Navy Saddle

Carmina also uses a number of exotic leathers like: Crocodile, Alligator, Lizard and Snake

Styling & Lasts

Carmina's men's shoes mostly fall into the 'dress shoe' style where they produce a large number of styles. Carmina also makes more casual shoes such as moccasin style loafers and various styles of boots including (but limited to) chukkas, chelseas, jodphurs, oxford boots and their popular 'jumper boot' which is based on a paratrooper boot.

Carmina's men's shoes come in a number of lasts but this is not an exhaustive list. Some of the more common lasts seen are the Rain, Forest and Simpson. Carmina's shoe design match well with the shapes of their lasts souce which are often not very sleek with the exception of the Simpson last. See here for a nice comparison of the common lasts

Some of the lasts and styles of the women's line can be seen here and according to Carmina it is targeted mainly at business women. source

Quality

Carmina shoes are typically highly regarded on internet forums for being good quality shoes. They have been compared favourably to C&J handgrade shoes but on forums they are typically not considered to be in the same league as upper end shoe companies like EG or G&G.

While most people appear happy with the quality of Camina they are without QC and customer service issues. This particular story sparked a few complaints regarding issues with shoes and there have been some reports poor sturdiness of their soles source. Because they have a number of online resellers it's likely that many people will not deal directly with Carmina and reports of bad customer service would be made against the stores.

Customer Service

Carmina runs it's own web store, by most accounts ordering a RTW shoe is quick and painless with fast shipping. Their online store could do with improvements in the amount of information and images about the various shoes and lasts they have.

Carmina also has a number of online resellers, such as Skoaktiebolaget, Epaulet, The Armoury and a number of others. Often resellers will do MTOs or special makeups which tend to produce interesting designs and use a variety of leathers.

Final Thoughts

Carmina appears to have positioned itself well in the menswear market by offering good quality shoes at a price point which sits below highly regarded companies like G&G and Vass but higher than companies such as Meermin and AE. Their expertise with shell cordovan is certainly also a boon in today's shoe scene with demand for the material at a high.

In my opinion Carmina shoes are well worth considering if you are looking for cordovan dress shoes and boots or even just your next dress shoe.

Carmina has a large thread on SF dedicated to the shoes as well as a thread about sizing which can be quite handy for common lasts however often the rarer lasts can be hard to get a comparative size for.