Harel

Shoe design house and manufacturer. Pierre Harel started to design shoes in 1922, creating décolleté with Louis XV style heels and stiletto boots. He strengthened the relationship between fashion and accessories. In 1935 the business was taken over by his second son, Armand. From this point onwards, several important collaborations began with Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Nina Ricci that continued in the post-war period with Dior and Balmain. Today Harel has three boutiques in Paris (Avenue Montaigne, Rue Franµois, and Rue de Tourvion). Harel continues its tradition of exclusivity through the high quality of the brand’s skins. For every shoe the artisan chooses an ad-hoc skin. The artisan treats many different skins with the same self-assurance, such as alligators from the Mississippi river (available in 33 different shades), iguana from Mali (44 shades), and Indonesian pythons and ostriches (33 shades), each of which has its own extremely restricted fan club. Even rarer animals such as the phosaurus (a sub-species of crocodile), the tejus, shark, or frog are used in the production of Harel’s shoes. The manufacturing procedure, comprised of about 150 different operations, reveals the complexity of precise mechanics. The skins are treated in an unusual way; each one is adapted to fit just one foot. They are cut in 10-15 pieces before being joined together, glued, folded, and assembled. Once the basic work has been completed, they are left to dry for a long period.
Harel, with other brands such as Scherrer, Emmanuelle Khahn International, and Jacques Fath, is acquired by the France Luxury Group, a company that has been established at the beginning of the year by Moufarrige and Franµois Barthes.
The women’s shoe griffe Emeraude was relaunched. It has been created in 1922 by Pierre Harel. Hasley revitalized the eighty-year-old brand. Twenty styles were launched on the market, which rejuvenated the original shoe manufacturing with noble materials such as iguana, kid, and golden lamb.