For some, this headline doesn’t mean much. For those in the know, this headline is massive. Most likely no other factory in the world has made Goodyear welted shoes for more men’s shoe brands the past years, making for everything from big players to small MTO-based brands. After new owners last year took over the Sendra factory in Almansa, Spain, they now will stop making shoes for external brands.
Sendra was founded back in 1913 by Andrés Sendra in the Spanish town of Almansa, the largest shoemaking district of Spain. They made traditional cowboy boots, and slowly but steadily built up a great reputation. In the 1960’s they established themselves in the big American market, and key to the success here was Javier Sendra, great-grandson to the founder, who came to run the company for many decades. Their own brand Sendra Boots has of course been key, but they’ve also done a lot of production for other cowboy boot brands.
Sendra is one of the biggest factories in Spain producing Goodyear welted boots and shoes.
Javier Sendra was also the one who saw the possibility to expand with making more classic men’s shoes, when the dress shoe craze was in full swing in the 2010’s. Even if cowboy boots always have stayed the main thing for the company, they began doing more dress shoes both under the brand name Andrés Sendra, and with private label production for other companies. The factory employed almost 200 persons.
The classic men’s shoe production was growing a lot for many years. As word spread that they were a solid Spanish factory of Goodyear welted shoes that could do everything from basic entry level welted shoes to finer premium make, and with relatively low minimum order quantities, they attracted a lot of newcomers. Several who’ve been growing to become big players.
I’m not going to state any brands here, partly since I don’t always remember who have made public that they produce at Sendra and who haven’t, and partly since more fuss around this is not what these brands need now with the current situation. But for my own enjoyment I’ve had a list on my phone where I’ve gathered shoe brands that made shoes at Sendra, that I came to know about. This has grown to over 20 brands (although not all of those are still active).
Andrés Sendra shoes.
In May 2023, Javier Sendra sadly passed away. Even if among others his daughter Alejandra was part of the company, as I understand it the management and how to run things wasn’t all clear, and it’s been some turbulent times for the Sendra factory since the passing of the owner and CEO. Eventually, Sendra was sold to external investors, in the second half of 2025.
Quickly the new investors made changes. In October, all brands who had their shoes produced by Sendra were contacted and informed that Sendra intended to stop making private label shoe production. They were to focus solely on cowboy boots again. Already placed orders would be produced, but no new orders would be taken. As far as I know, this goes for all brands, also the really big ones who ordered many thousands of shoes a year. Maybe they got a bit longer to solve transition though, I don’t know.
he Sendra factory also makes some rugged boots, which has been growing in popularity in recent years. We’ll see if this will continue, or if it’s all in on cowboy boots now despite where wider popularity of styles are for the moment.
While I can appreciate a wish to go back to the roots for Sendra (we all know how we in the classic shoe world can feel when shoe manufacturers start focusing on other stuff than what we love them for), given the quality level of the classic shoes they produced were well in-line with their cowboy boots, one wish it could have stayed on as a complement even if they wanted to build up focus on cowboy boots again.
It’s a big blow for a lot of shoe brands, who’ve been working with Sendra for many years and built up their whole company based on their production. Hopefully they can all find new good shoe factories, we know there’s many also in Almansa, or other parts of Spain or perhaps Portugal. But it’s always a challenge especially if you have little time to prepare.
Sendra cowboy boots. All pictures: Sendra
NOTE: I’ve reached out to Sendra with questions on the new direction for the factory, without any response this far.
Great article. I’m sure it’s very unsettling for any brand who is working with them to now have to find a new manufacturer. A recent blog post by someone whose name I won’t mention I’m guessing, was using this factory and saw the handwriting on the wall. But literally your whole business can collapse at a moment’s notice if you don’t have somebody to manufacture your shoes.
Michael: Cheers! Yeah things can be sensitive in that way, and even if there’s plenty of shoe factories, it can be difficult to get into a new place well. As said, hope most will sort it swiftly!
I would be a bit more controversial: I am tired of brands who order from factories like Sendra for 100 euros, create fake stories via social media, and sell these products for 400+. Even respected business owners keep such information as close to themselves as possible.
As a customer, I dislike that 2010s boom propelled prices of classic mens shoes into 500+ for a pair you could get for 200 before (even 100-150 on a discount). Now even a small new player feels entitled to these price for shoes ordered in Spain or 4 digits for bespoke offerings.
And I am not even talking about inferior leathers…
PM: Actually I think that all the new brands that came last decade kept prices down, since competition became so fierce. It’s mainly the last 5 years where prices have become significantly higher than the regular inflation also for the entry level brands, and where more brands start to work with higher margins, IME. That said, I’m also not a fan of the fake stories and exaggerated branding some of these brands do, where for example one of the brands working with Sendra talked about how their shoes were produced in “their Spanish atelier”…
Jesper, I think that MSRP trends are in line with what you described, but 2010s substantially decreased available discounts on classic shoes. I still remember how I was able to buy C&J at 100GBP or even below brand new, albeit with some imperfections – these deals do not exist anymore.
My intuition is that not only cost is driving prices upwards, often above inflation, but also marketing (and branding) strategy. Probably there is a significant audience, mostly outside the West, who is willing to pay for stories “I live in London, I received the decades knowledge and skills of traditional British shoemaking after 9 months at Gaziano & Girling, I decided to bring my vision with the new brand, and offer you my shoes starting at 4000 GBP per pair”.
PM: Actually, I’d say there are much more sales on quality shoes today than it was 10-15 years ago. Also from C&J, I mean now they themselves run huge sales twice a year.
As mentioned agree that branding is an issue. But that’s mainly for the D2C brands and similar, for small independent makers like the ones you refer to I’m fully on board with them taking properly pay for their shoes, it’s only way to make it long term sustainable, very few of these make any money they just try to survive.
This is sad news. Considering the quality and price points, these were one of the best mid price shoes out there. Being an average wage earner in Europe, I simply will never afford to fork out 550-700€ for the english brands. Without a true retail presence for most of them, the buying experience is going to be a hassle to begin with: fitting, expensive return policies, etc.
Jesper do you know if the overall volume of dress GYW+ shoes has been on the decline since the pandemic? I figured it has to be due to people ditching proper leather shoes for sneakers or their bastardizations
Tim: I don’t have any stats, just my feeling of working in the industry and of what I hear from many others. Of course, pandemic meant a big decline, it has turned upwards since, but not to the levels we saw before 2020. That said, it’s certainly still a huge amount of people out there who want to have proper leather shoes.