Marea

Marea New York is founded by Spanish-born, Brooklyn-based designer and creative Maria Gordillo with the intention of producing unique sandals with a sense of place and made with inherently fair and sustainable practices. Marea New York sandals are for the modern woman, with both style and identity for everywhere from the city to the shore. On a trip to South America, Gordillo noticed the shoes of an old fisherman walking along beside ocean wearing a pair of sandals she had never seen before. The fisherman told her the sandals came from a small village inland from the coast, so Maria sought them out for herself and began wearing them religiously back in New York City. Like her with the fisherman, people began stopping her on the street to ask where they were from. With a background in advertising, film, and fashion in Madrid and New York, Maria quickly understood that sandals such as these, with a modern update, would be of interest to European and US markets. After several years determining the most authentic and ethical manufacturing sources, Gordillo now works with three small-scale factories in Peru, each under the leadership of women. One factory to create the right natural dyes for the fabric uppers, a collective of Peruvian women artisans to braid each textile, and a family-run factory to assemble the sandals by hand.