Footshop and Botas present a new joint sneaker collection

It started with jabs on social networks about how the shoe industry should be approached in the Czech Republic – and ended with a collaboration that can be of great importance on the local scene. Footshop and the traditional Czech manufacturer Botas have teamed up to present a new sneaker collection. At the beginning, they send exactly eleven models into circulation, through which they want both to please sneaker fans and to help return shoemaking to high schools, so that the craft can be heard again.

When a public argument broke out recently between Peter Hajduček, who heads the streetwear store Footshop, and Václav Staňek, the founder of the shoe company Vaska, many might have thought that something was wrong with her. First, the sprayed window of Footshop in the center of Prague, then Staňko’s rather sharp statement that the streetwear retailer does not create value, and later Hajdučka’s equally harsh reaction. CzechCrunch delved into the whole internet affair and discovered that it could be a marketing ploy rather than a real dispute, as both companies are clearly up to something.

In seclusion, Hajduček and Staněk and their teams were really baking a new thing that they revealed a few moments ago. The central role in it is played by the famous Czech shoe brand Botas, which Vasky saved from liquidation a year ago and bought. Some time ago, they reincarnated a few iconic models under it, built their first new brick-and-mortar store, and now they will try to kick it up a notch, thanks to the collaboration with Footshop.

Ten models from the new collection will go on sale today Goodbye Nostalgia, in which both the design sensibility of Footshop, or more precisely the designer Petra Šorejsová, and the timeless style for which the boots are widely known – and for decades – are prescribed. Five models were designed by Footshop, five by Botas. The photo gallery below shows the best fresh silhouettes. Only about the new collection, for which both actors played a smart performance on LinkedIn, but there is no collaboration.

As indicated by the internet campaign, which started with a spray-painted window of the Footshop store in the center of Prague, Staněk and Hajduček plan to confirm in the coming weeks and months that honest cobblestone and modern trends from the world can go hand in hand. At the very beginning, two views collided, when the founder Vasek bet on handcraft, while the head of Footshop built a business with, among other things, the best sneakers in the world.

Even the name of the entire collection, which reads Goodbye Nostalgia (i.e Goodbye, nostalgia), evokes that the difference between the two directions can be erased at least a little. After all, it will probably be planned – the design team was supposed to work on them for over ten months, and they also had to deploy new production procedures and materials. “However, from the beginning of the development, I believed that our shoemakers could handle it, and they would add a piece of themselves.” says Vít Staněk, the new boss of Botas and Václav’s brother.

“It can be seen that the Staňk brothers have professional experience in production and, at the same time, entrepreneurial vision. We are united by a view of the world, a desire to experiment, constantly improve and discover new horizons. And that’s why I’m very happy about this collaboration. No one has ever been brave enough to produce a sneaker collection of this size in the Czech Republic and send it all out.” says Hajduček.

The involvement of Footshop as a love brand will have an impact in the community of young people, for whom the Botas brand may be largely unknown. After all, they didn’t even have to experience the time when the so-called boots were in vogue. This is also why one particularly limited model will not be on regular sale. Customers will have to bid on it at Aukra – and the money will go towards teaching high school students more about cobblestone.

The final auctioned amount will be reserved for the re-opening of the Shoemaking department at the Technical Lyceum in Zlín, a city where shoemaking has a huge tradition thanks to Tomáš Bať. “Around 1930, there were around thirty thousand shoemakers in the field in Zlín. Around 2018, their number dropped to barely 3,500 across the country,” states Staněk, a native of Zlín, for whom this is one of the important missions from the position of a young entrepreneur.

News items are available both on the Vaska e-shop and on the Footshop e-shop. Prices are around three thousand crowns.