Ep. 16 - Rezső Kuti, Vass Shoes, about handmade shoes from Hungary

In this episode I talk with Rezső Kuti of the Hungarian brand Vass Shoes, certainly the most famous shoe brand of the country, who've been making hand welted fully handmade shoes since the 1970's. Rezső worked as Sales Manager for the company for about a decade and built up its internationally successful MTO programme, he then spent a couple of years as Factory Manager for Heinrich Dinkelacker's Budapest factory and started the brand Passus Shoes, before re-joining Vass as Sales Consultant about 1,5 years ago. We of course talk a lot about Vass, about the reasons for the brand's fame around the world, about the massive challenges that the covid situation has put them in and how they've run a lot of sales simply to not have to lay off their shoemakers and staff, etc, but also about the Hungarian quality shoe business in general, with a long heritage and a characteristic style as a base, where most still do everything all by hand.