BEAUTIFULLY IMPERFECT

Natural crepe isn't perfect. It goes hard in the winter, soft in the summer. It changes colour, picks up marks, dirt and fluff, its texture varies, darkens with wear and develops a character entirely of its own, and that's exactly why we like it.

At Meanforme, we've never been particularly interested in making shoes that look as though they've come straight from a mould. We like materials with character — leathers that show their natural grain, suedes with variations in texture and colour, and soles that tell the story of being worn. Natural crepe fits perfectly into that world.

Made from natural rubber latex harvested from rubber trees, it's soft, flexible, wonderfully comfortable and inherently individual. No two pieces are ever quite identical and, just like the materials sitting above it, crepe evolves as you wear it. For us, those imperfections aren't something you want to hide; they're part of what makes our shoes beautiful.

01 — IT STARTS WITH A TREE

Long before natural crepe finds its way beneath a pair of Meanforme shoes, it begins life as something altogether different — a milky white latex flowing beneath the bark of a rubber tree.

Hevea brasiliensis, or simply the rubber tree, originated in the Amazon rainforest of South America. Today, most of the world's natural rubber is cultivated thousands of miles away in Southeast Asia, with Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia among its largest producers.

Harvesting the latex is a remarkably simple process. A skilled tapper makes a shallow cut into the bark of the tree, allowing the natural latex to slowly run along the groove and into a collecting cup below. Tapping usually takes place during the cooler hours of the night or early morning, allowing the latex to flow for longer before the cut naturally seals.

The trees produce latex for 10 years or more (between the ages of 10 – 20) and can go on to live for another 30 years. Once their productive life eventually comes to an end, they can be felled and the timber put to further use.

02 — FROM LATEX TO CREPE

Once collected from the tree, the liquid latex begins its transformation into natural rubber.

The latex is encouraged to coagulate, separating the rubber from much of its liquid content. The resulting material is then repeatedly passed through rollers, squeezing out excess water while pressing and working the rubber into sheets. These sheets are then dried, creating the wonderfully tactile natural rubber that will eventually become crepe.

From here, the material can be prepared for shoemaking — cut, shaped, layered and worked by hand to create the distinctive soles beneath many of our shoes. What began as liquid flowing from a tree is now soft, flexible and remarkably durable, and importantly for us, it still doesn't look completely uniform.

03 — FROM UTILITY TO ICON

Crepe rubber found its way into footwear for one very simple reason — it worked.

By the 1930s, natural crepe was increasingly being used as an alternative to traditional leather soles. Soft, flexible and hard-wearing, it offered a very different feeling underfoot.

During the 1940s, rough crepe-soled boots became associated with servicemen stationed in the hot, demanding environments of North Africa and Burma. Simple, practical and comfortable, these shoes were made for function rather than fashion. That practicality would eventually inspire something of an icon.

In 1949, Nathan Clark developed what would become the Clarks Desert Boot, influenced by the simple crepe-soled suede boots he had encountered through servicemen returning from overseas. What began as a practical solution had found its way into everyday footwear — and natural crepe had established a place beneath some of the most recognisable shoes of the twentieth century.

 

04 — WHY WE USE IT

We made the decision from the very beginning to use natural crepe on our shoes. For us, it was an easy one to make. Over the years, many footwear brands have moved away from natural crepe towards synthetic alternatives. They're cleaner, more consistent and certainly more predictable. But for us, that's also part of what gets lost.

 Natural crepe has character. It varies in colour and texture, it changes with wear and it feels wonderfully soft and flexible underfoot. Even the smell is distinctive — that unmistakable aroma of natural rubber sitting alongside the leathers and suedes we use is something we've come to associate with a freshly made pair of Meanformes. It's not the cleanest material. It's not the most uniform. And it's definitely not the most predictable.

05 — PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

By the time natural crepe reaches our factory in Northern Portugal, it's traveled a long way from the rubber tree where its story began. Now it has to become a sole.

In the hands of our shoemakers, the crepe is shaped to follow the shoe. What began as latex from a rubber tree becomes the part that meets the ground: soft underfoot, flexible in movement, and never identical from one pair to the next.

That small difference is part of its appeal. You can see where the material came from, feel what it does, and watch it gather marks from being worn. For us, that’s when the story of natural crepe begins.