Celebrated Footwear Designer and Founder of OTZ Footwear, Ludovic (Ludo) Malmoux has launched a contemporary, sustainable comfort-driven footwear brand, VIBAe. Malmoux’s two-decade design career has impacted some iconic brands including K-Swiss, Royal Elastics, Salomon and more. The brand is perfectly suited to the casual, chic aesthetic of the times where upscale comfort reigns.
VIBAe’s brand’s design objective is simple…casual-friendly profile, traditional shape with a comfort fit built on a stitch-out natural rubber outsole and constructed with organic French Linen. In additional to being eco-built in every detail from sourcing to packaging, the brand’s color aesthetic is minimalistic, contemporary and denim-friendly with an optimistic color assortment and unisex sizing. Small production runs will be made in low volume family factories in Portugal, the concept of which can be found in #slowfashion.
Initially VIBAe will be available direct-to-consumer at VIBAe.com and through the brand’s two flagship stores in Malibu Village, a location which opened on August 1st to incredible success, and in Helsinki, which opened this past weekend. VIBAe plans to launch wholesale in the near future and we introduce some very exciting plans to create their retail presence in an entirely fresh way.
“Our focus is on the contemporary global consumer with unisex sizing, colors and profiles representing artistic signals we think will appeal to the millions of people worldwide who find artisanal design to be an important part of their lives; VIBAe is an opportunity to make a small statement about sustainability and healthy living,” said Malmoux . “VIBAe is targeted directly at the consumer, in this case a global one. We will not lose sight of consumer-centricity. Being part of a great art community like Malibu gives us insights into an unusually deep local creative scenes, there will be no filters between the consumer and the brand as we build.”
In 2012 Ludovic Malmoux happened across the National Geographic article on the OTZ man and was inspired by the simplicity of OTZ man’s shoes. Two years later, (3278 years later!) Ludo’s OTZ brand emerged in the USA and Asia with a very cool and minimalistic design. OTZ Shoes caught fire and the Brand was sold ultimately to a large Asia based retailer in 2015. During the course of this work with OTZ, Malmoux collaborated with a passionate distributor in Finland and later partnered with the distributor in the formation of VIBAe.
VIBAe is based in Los Angeles California. For further information, visit our web site VIBAe.com.
