The audacity and entrepreneurial spirit of Rémy
Richard
It all began in the late nineteenth century
in Izeaux, a small village at the foot of the Alps .
Rémy-Alexis Richard, born in 1878 into a humble farming family, became a
semi-skilled cutter at Chevron, one of a score of shoe factories in this Isère
village. These factories received orders from contractors "in the
city", bought the leather, cut it and had the pieces assembled by farming
families at home in the surrounding hills, before fixing them (by nailing or
sewing them) onto wooden or leather soles, depending on the product in
question.
Rémy Richard soon realised that these
contractors from the cities earned more money than his own boss, and decided to
try his luck; he went up to Paris with the designs for his own models to sell
them as a "factory agent".
His plan worked! Rémy had "his"
first shoes manufactured by the factories in Izeaux – including the one he had
just left – and sold them to the "major" clients in Paris
Rubber becomes the DNA of the Paraboot brand
From Paris
to London via Amsterdam
In 1926, although he didn’t speak a word of
English, he set sail for the United
States
Rémy began manufacturing boots that were
guaranteed to be waterproof, with "layers" of latex added by hand on
wooden lasts and vulcanised in vats.
Rémy Richard was not the first to do this,
however. In 1853 the Englishman Hiram Hutchinson Hutchinson
Rémy did however have eleven years’ start
on Vitale Bramani, the founder of the "Vibram" brand: it was Rémy
Richard who invented notched soles for mountain boots. Such were the
interweaving paths of destiny.
Rémy then had the idea of using this rubber
to replace wooden soles. These were inexpensive but uncomfortable and tended to
wear out too quickly
Rémy just needed to find the right
technique: at that time, the leather uppers of shoes were either nailed to
wooden soles or sewn onto leather soles. Neither technique was possible with
rubber soles.
Rémy Richard therefore developed a system
using fine rubber soles which could be sewn to the upper and then glued with
liquid latex to a thicker rubber sole.
The only remaining problem was
vulcanisation; an old walnut oil press (another local speciality) made it
possible to bake, and thus vulcanise, these shoes in steel moulds, using the
humble principle of the waffle iron.
From then on, all the work boots had rubber
soles. These became the distinguishing mark of footwear produced at the Richard
Pontvert factory.
1983
Le plébiscite de « la » Michael
sauve Paraboot de la disparition
Whilst negotiating with the Trade Tribunal,
Michel Richard went to Italy
The Italian stylists had decreed that men
needed to get themselves a new look: gone were the dark suit, shirt and tie and
black thin-soled moccasins. Instead they were to wear tweed jackets, corduroy
trousers and polo-neck jumpers. All that was missing was a thick-soled shoe
made from decent materials. Although they had all they needed in Italy
The popular demand for “the” Michael saved
Paraboot from going under.
The fashion quickly caught on, orders
flooded in and the workload management schedule was assured. The historic
suppliers who had been spared when bankruptcy loomed remained loyal! Paraboot
had been working with the same tanneries for several generations – suppliers
who were friends first and foremost, who shared the same passion for the job
and enjoyed mutual trust. That made all the difference.
The French clients were still there and
were right to have waited: two years later, the Italian fashion arrived in France
The only thing left to be done was to
reorganise everything: the staff trusted the young boss and accepted his new
rules. Management control became sharper, with computers rolled out to all
departments. Productivity improved - as did pay.
The bankers were relegated to counting
income and expenditure.
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