A New Shoe Brand That Puts (Extreme) Comfort First

It’s not every day that San Antonio Shoemakers, a pre-eminent maker of handcrafted comfort shoes, gets a call from a young entrepreneur. But in early 2014, Nancy Richardson, the C.E.O. of the 40-year-old brand referred to as SAS, was contacted by Eree Kim, a 38-year-old designer who wanted, surprisingly, to collaborate. Kim proposed that she work with SAS to manufacture a line of comfortable — and stylish — footwear.

Thus began a partnership that has led to Hopp (which translates to “bounce” in Swedish), a brand of shoes and bags that Kim launched this week. “I have always been known as the comfort-shoe girl,” she says, laughing. For years, Kim would order pairs from several purveyors of orthopedic shoes — and always want to make one or two adjustments. This gave her the idea to create a shoe that was both easy to walk in and cool. So she designed a single style with a sleek shape and sourced the soles from Italy. SAS manufactured the shoe with its comfortable padded insoles, linings and arch supports.

The first collection features a lace-up style in black, white, ocean blue and light gray; to fill out her initial offering, Kim — a former denim and knitwear designer at Opening Ceremony — added perfectly circular tote bags in leather and suede, which she is producing in Queens, in the same color palette. “Whenever I’ve worn uncomfortable shoes, I’m just miserable for the whole day,” she says. “I just want shoes for women that exist that are comfortable. I don’t understand why there have to be shoes that have to look good but can’t be comfortable at the same time.”

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