A product is designed to fit the unique needs
and wants of its people. In the shoe market, we have the UK, US, CHN, JAP sizes,
these are standard sizes set for their respective markets concerning their
people. We do not have standard African sizes. This shows that no one is making
shoes for Africans. According to KNBS 2017, Kenya has an annual shoe consumption
of 32million pairs, the local production capacity is a mere 4 million pairs.
The deficit is filled by imports. This means that the market is saturated with
shoes that were designed for a market that is not ours. As a result, we have a
huge number of people who have corns, ingrown nails, athlete foot, joint pains,
back pains and eventually arthritis. The most affected are outlier sizes as
they not fit into the set standard sizes thus they mostly end up wearing ill-fitting shoes, customized shoes being quite expensive thus not affordable to
everyone. The second-hand shoe market has been the dominant shoe market in
Kenya for a very long time offering cheap second-hand shoes to the local populace.
VaaKenya is here to fill the gap, dignifying African feet one shoe aft a time. We are designing footwear for Africa's unique climate, way of life and most importantly sizes.