JOURNAL

Behind the Scenes 30 - Coming Soon: GORAL REPURPOSED

The Goral & Son workshop, The home of GORAL, manufactures for a number of other footwear and clothing brands, due to this we’ve built up a supply of leftover leather and other materials, someti...

Meet The Makers: Danuta, Closing Room Operative

Meet Danuta, one of the members of our closing team, for the past 5 years she's been responsible for stitching sections of leather and other materials together to form the upper of the shoes we mak...

SUPPLIER TRANSPARENCY: KAPS

The Company: Kaps Kaps, a company based in the village of Halickie, Poland employing over 150 members of staff, produces a number of footwear related products. Starting in 1994 the company primari...

SUPPLIER TRANSPARENCY: LACTAE HEVEA

The Company: Lactae Hevea (Reltex)Reltex, a company based in the Dauphiné region of France, started producing their Lactae Hevea soles in the 1970's based on a Native American process that was ref...

Behind the Scenes - Working with Horween Chromexcel

BEHIND THE SCENES  - Made with a process that’s nearly a century old, Horween’s Chromexcel is an aniline leather that is oiled and waxed with a hand rubbed finish. Much like Goral & Son’s own ...

Behind the Scenes 28 - Making Shoes for Conscious Consumers

BEHIND THE SCENES 28  - When we first started working on the GORAL brand there were many conversations had about what we wanted for the brand, the values we wanted to weave into it's DNA and the t...

Behind the Scenes 27 - We're a Drapers Footwear Awards 2021 Finalist

BEHIND THE SCENES 27  - It's with a great degree of pride and excitement we can announce that GORAL is a finalist in this year's Drapers Footwear Awards 'Sustainability Initiative of the Year' for...

Behind the Scenes 26 - A new take on our minimal classic

BEHIND THE SCENES 26  -A few months back we started talking about ideas for a summer product launch, a few different ideas were floating around but one that kept coming back up was launching a sup...

Meet The Makers: Kamila, QC & Production

MEET THE MAKERS: KAMILA (4th Gen) QC & PRODUCTION 7 YEARS AT GORAL & SON⁠ Meet Kamila, Bogdan’s daughter and part of the 4th generation to work for Goral & Son. As with her brother Dom...

Meet The Makers: Leszek, Production Manager

MEET THE MAKERS: LESZEK PRODUCTION MANAGER 5 YEARS AT GORAL & SON⁠ Joining us in 2016 as a lasting room operative, Leszek quickly showed a deep understanding of the factory, the processes and ...

Behind the Scenes 25 - Creating a Transparent and Traceable Supply Chain

BEHIND THE SCENES 25  - This week we've been reaching out to our suppliers, for everything from the leather and suede we use to the thread and eyelets, asking them a series of questions to give us...

Meet The Makers: Jakub, Quality Control and Packing

MEET THE MAKERS: JAKUB QC & PACKING 5 YEARS AT GORAL & SON⁠In his past five years working for Goral & Son Jakub has taken on a number of different roles at the workshop, starting out a...

Behind the Scenes 24 - Why Quality Matters: A 6 Month Comparison

BEHIND THE SCENES 24- We decided to put our construction through it's paces to see how it faired against a run of the mill trainer construction. ⁠⁠After 6 months of wear we opened up two pairs of ...

Behind the Scenes - Working with Cheaney to bring back a classic

BEHIND THE SCENES Last year we were approached by the team at Joseph Cheaney & Sons to help them create a small collection of trainers to add to their line of traditional footwear. After the s...

Meet The Makers: Bogdan, Managing Director

MEET THE MAKERS: BOGDAN⁠MANAGING DIRECTOR⁠(3rd Generation)⁠44 YEARS AT GORAL & SON⁠⁠Nephew of the 2nd Generation director Czeslaw Goral, son of founder Franciszek, Bogdan followed in his famil...

Behind the Scenes - The Story Behind the GORAL Blake Stitch

BEHIND THE SCENESA comprehensive guide to our unique constructionWhen we first launched our REBUILD+ service we were using a simple sidewall stitch, as is commonplace for trainers, but we noticed ...

Introducing: The Dali in collaboration with Hemingsworth Menswear.

The Ultimate in comfort and style reworked in true GORAL fashion   Earlier this year we teamed up with Hemingsworth Menswear to create an espadrille with a difference, incorporating trainer eleme...

Behind the Scenes 21 - True luxury with every component

BEHIND THE SCENES 21- A DEEPDIVE INTO THE FLOCKTON LOAFERTrue luxury with every component specifically chosen to increase comfort. Over 80 years of experience went into developing this hybrid loaf...

Behind the Scenes 20 - Building Your Perfect Pair of GORALS

BEHIND THE SCENES 20-Every pair of feet are different, that's why this week we launched our customisation service to let you customise your order, change the sole type, level of padding and type o...

Behind the Scenes 19 - Making a Switch to Renewable Energy Sources

BEHIND THE SCENES 19-A lot of what we do at GORAL is about minimising waste, from making footwear that lasts for years not months to lowering our carbon footprint by reducing the distance our shoe...

Behind the Scenes - What Does Black Friday Look Like for a Made to Order Business?

BEHIND THE SCENES 18 What does black friday look like for GORAL?Short answer? It looks like most other days of the year. Why? Black Friday is all about clearing out unsold stock to prepare for a n...

Behind the Scenes 17 - New Soles for Next Year's Collection

BEHIND THE SCENES 17 - All this month we've been hard at work planning a new collection for 2021, designing new styles and deciding on new colourways for the current ones. We're also working out w...

Behind the Scenes 16 - What does Handcrafted really mean?

BEHIND THE SCENES 16 - Here at GORAL we've been handcrafting footwear since 1936, working with luxury brands to create shoes, boots and trainers. We're recognised for our attention to detail and h...

Behind the Scenes 15 - GORAL X THE RAKE

BEHIND THE SCENES 15 - Finding the right retailers to stock GORAL shoes is something we've put a lot of time and effort into, finding partners who's audience is right for our products and  will un...

Behind the Scenes 14 - Dustbags Redesigned to Keep Your GORALS Protected

BEHIND THE SCENES 14-The easiest way to damage shoes is during wear, we use high quality materials and craftsmanship techniques to prevent this as much as possible. But even when you're not wearin...

Behind the Scenes 13 - Using Better Components Results in Better Footwear

BEHIND THE SCENES 13 - Constantly improving and evolving is part of the GORAL way. Since 1936 we've made a conscious effort to develop our methods and stay ahead of the curve to make sure the GORA...

Behind the Scenes - CHARLES F STEAD - Working with a World Renowned Tannery

BEHIND THE SCENES- One of our main goals for our 2020 collection was improving the quality of our shoes to make sure they're a worthwhile investment. A lot of time was put into improving the constr...

Behind the Scenes 11 - New Packaging for a New and Improved Collection

BEHIND THE SCENES 11-Today we received our new packaging, a little delayed due Covid-19 but better late than never.The shoe-box features gold embossed lettering on a textured charcoal card with th...

Behind the Scenes 10 - Leather waste and what we're doing about it

BEHIND THE SCENES 10-As we push to make GORAL a more sustainable business one issue we're working on is how to reduce the amount of leather waste we produce. Currently our leather scraps are donat...

Reviewed and Approved by The Mensch

We have received another glowing review this week, this time from Boot critiquing youtuber The Mensch. See him take a look at The Mellor -White, the new construction and overall craftsmanship from...

Behind the Scenes 9 - The GORAL Workshop Annual Maintenance

BEHIND THE SCENES 9-This week we completed our annual maintenance, this means our machines are now performing at their best. While carrying out checks we noticed the air pressure in some machines ...

Behind the Scenes 8 - The Return of the Cupsole

BEHIND THE SCENES 8-You asked, we answered!Since launching our latest collection we've had some great feedback about the changes we've made. That being said, one question that's kept coming up is ...

Behind the Scenes 7 - Keeping our team safe from COVID-19

BEHIND THE SCENES 7-Here at GORAL we always put our staff first, they’re the backbone of our business and without them the workshop and the GORAL brand would not exist. Whilst production continues ...

Behind the Scenes 6 - Introducing Size 13 (UK) to the GORAL range

BEHIND THE SCENES 6 - You may have noticed that with the arrival of our latest collection there's the option to order GORAL trainers in a size 13 (UK). This change was one of the biggest requests ...

Behind the Scenes - Cheaney by GORAL

BEHIND THE SCENES This week we saw our collaboration with Cheaney shoes go live - a rework of The Boulsover in three unique colourways with pared back branding and heritage detailing. Cheaney is...

Behind the Scenes 4 - Get your hands on a pair of our classics

BEHIND THE SCENES 4 - To kick off our new collection we’re offering you the chance to win a pair of one of our classic styles in the colourway of your choice - The Mellor, The Boulsover and The Ha...

Goral Shoes - Reviewed by Rose Anvil

REVIEWED BY ROSE ANVIL DE-CONSTRUCTING OUR NEW AND IMPROVED CONSTRUCTIONEarlier this month we sent out a pair of The Mellor, featuring our new and improved construction, to renowned YouTuber, West...

Behind the Scenes - Adding a touch of steel to our Sheffield made trainers

BEHIND THE SCENES 3 - With our latest collection we introduced some new branding components to our trainers. A new branded sole, yellow insole and a steel logo inside a window on the heel tab. The...

Behind the Scenes - The World's First Blake Stitch Trainer

BEHIND THE SCENES The new Hybrid Trainer collection introduces the Blake Stitch for use in trainers. Our craftsmen have developed this process to enable quicker resoling. The Blake Stitch stitches...

Behind the Scenes - A new collection and a new way to keep you in the loop

BEHIND THE SCENES- This week we've seen the launch of our new Hybrid Trainer collection featuring reworked GORAL favourites and four new styles based on classic shoes, the boat shoe, loafer, monkst...

The New Hybrid Trainer Collection is Live - Featuring Our New Blake Stitch Construction

GORAL introduces the Blake Stitch to create an industry-first re-solable trainer for its latest Hybrid Trainer Collection. Today we launch the Hybrid Trainer Collection, which introduces a palette ...

What does sustainability mean here at the Goral Factory?

As a business with over 80 years under our belt, sustainability is at the heart of what we do. We’re not a flash in the pan, we intend to stick around, and surviving in this industry means adapting...

Doing our bit in the fight against Covid-19

As the world comes together to fight Covid-19, community becomes key in keeping people safe and in good spirits. As a family factory with staff that have been with us for generations, community is ...

MEET THE MAKERS: JAKUB

Name: Jakub Age:  41 Factory Role: Sidewall Stitch Operative Years at Goral: 3 years What does a day in the life of a Sidewall Stitch Operative look like? As well as being a Sidewall Stitch Operat...