All About Alina

Maguire is proud to introduce the Alina Platform Sandals, handmade in collaboration with Ukrainian shoe factory, Kachorovska.

At Maguire, we are dedicated to providing our customers with stylish and comfortable footwear, and so is Kachorovska, a Ukrainian shoe factory located in Zhytomyr, a city near Kyiv. After meeting the factory owner last winter during Micam, a footwear fair in Milan, we were immediately enthralled by their story. Despite the struggles their community faces due to ongoing political difficulties, the team at Kachorovska aims to continue to live a life with a semblance of normalcy and pursue their business activities to provide for their families and loved ones.

From that encounter emerged an idea; what if we could conceive a meaningful partnership where we could not only support this community financially, but also give them autonomy and agency in their lives? As we started developing this collaboration, we were warned by the founder of the factory that there might be some risks in partnering with them. Electricity is not always reliable, internet access might suddenly disappear, products will need to cross border lines and be transferred to poland so they can be shipped to america, and the list goes on. Nonetheless, we went through with the collaboration and welcomed those risks if it meant being able to support a brand that shares our vision and values and is dedicated to fair labor practices.

Introducing the Alina Platform Sandals - a playful take on the Y2K aesthetic that provides style and comfort to the wearer. Somewhere between sleek, polished and ludic, Alina is offered in both Black and Bubblegum colourways and is available online and in stores.