Cog Store

Lyon · France

Omar CAMARA

“The value of an object doesn't lie in its rarity, but in the ethical care invested in its making.”

Cog exists because Omar Camara went looking for trainers made without animal materials and found almost nothing on the market, so he drew his own and took the sketches to family workshops in Portugal instead. The label's leather is pressed from grape pomace, the skins and stems wineries throw away, and the debut collection, Éclosion, was funded by crowdfunding rather than an investor. He draws every model himself.

I have three questions for you, and something in return.

Three questions.

Selected pieces

Winton Blanc Bleu Maïs

€139ledge price

COG Store Footwear · Lyon, France

A leather that started as waste

Cog makes vegan trainers and lace-ups from a leather pressed out of grape pomace, the skins and stems left over from winemaking. Omar Camara draws them near Lyon, and family workshops around Porto sew them by hand.

Ten model families make up the range now, low trainers, high-tops and dressier lace-ups, and they are all built from the same set of materials.

Beyond the grape leather, a pair is built largely from recycled material: ocean and PET plastic, cork, and linings of microfibre. The outsoles carry around thirty per cent recycled rubber, the layers are bonded with water-based adhesives, every pair is PETA-Approved Vegan, and the materials are certified to OEKO-TEX Standard 100.

A line for the ones that came out wrong

A snag, a small stain, a pair worn for a photoshoot, a prototype the workshop sent that missed the mark. None of it sends a pair to waste. Cog gathers them into a line called Les Imparfaites and sells them for 60 to 100 euro, where the main range runs up to 170. The flaw sits on the surface; underneath it is the same shoe.