Our Story
Tempie Shoes is the first eco-friendly, luxury, raffia design loafers. Rethinking men's leisurewear, Tempie Shoes is based in Harlem, New York and manufactured in Tuscany, Italy. Designed by Terry Williams, Tempie Shoes uses a revolutionary embroidery technique, in the same factories that produce some of the best luxury brands, Tempie Shoes is breaking new ground in the shoe world and men's footwear.
Our Founder
Tempie Shoes' founder and owner, Terry Willams is a Professor of Sociology at The New School for Social Research. In between teaching and writing, Williams has been studying the ins and outs of shoemaking and the fashion industry. Tempie Shoes was founded to bring change to the material culture and urges consumers to be kind to nature and our environment.
For more information please visit: https://cosmopolitan-life.com/
This project was born out of Terry's research on his family history during and after slavery in the United States. Tempie Shoes originated from a discussion with family members who told the story of a ten-year-old African girl captured in Calabar, Nigeria. She is the matriarch and Williams's great-great-great-grandmother. She was kidnapped and bought by slave traders around 1830-1840 and sent across the Atlantic via the Middle Passage, which was the stage of the triangular slave trade in which millions of Black bodies, mainly from West Africa, were forcibly transported to the New World barefoot.
Part of the Tempie Shoes' proceeds will be given to support the Harlem Arts Salon’s Gloster Arts Project in Mississippi, and Parsons School of Design students in New York City.
More info at TheGlosterartsProject.org
