Our Manufacturing

OUR MANUFACTURING JOURNEY

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We are sometimes asked why our footwear is not currently made in the USA. When we first started out in , we owned and operated a factory just a few miles from our current Minneapolis, MN headquarters. Fortunately, we were able to maintain manufacturing operations there for two decades. But as the interest and skill set of the local workforce shifted in new directions, eventually it was not feasible for us to keep our factory onshore.

In , we moved our manufacturing operations to the US territory of Puerto Rico, so we could keep jobs in North America. We operated in Puerto Rico for 30 years before the same issue of a shortage of skilled workers prompted us to move to our current location, in the Dominican Republic. Today, we still own and operate our factory in the Dominican Republic, where we continue to handcraft shoes, boots, slippers and accessories. We also partner with a select number of factories outside Shanghai, China, for manufacturing some of our other products. We still proudly maintain a US-based warehouse in our Minneapolis office which supports our local economy.

We have explored the possibility of reinstating a US-based factory, but unfortunately the same challenges we faced 50 years ago are even more pronounced now: few interested and skilled workers, and practically zero material suppliers. In lieu of manufacturing onshore, we work hard to ensure that working conditions in our Dominican Republic factory and at our factory partners in China are held to high ethical standards. You can read more about both of our factories below.

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We see ourselves as the inventor of the moccasin in Germany. It was Sioux which, as the first-ever manufacturer, launched this shoe on the German market.Anybody, who addresses the history of Sioux, should know the following story: The ancestors of the company&#;s founder Peter Sapper were Germans living in exile in Guatemala, Central America. Between World Wars I and II, the family returned to Germany. The family owned coffee plantations in the picturesque north of Guatemala. Guatemala was, and is even today, the Central American country with the highest indigenous population. Descendants of the Mayas still wore their traditional clothing at the beginning of the 20th century. Their footwear consisted of handmade moccasins, as was the case with all indigenous people in America. Provided with this source of inspiration, young Peter Sapper returned to Germany. In , he founded our company. Mr Sapper searched for an indigenous name for his new shoe company.

An indigenous name that was already known in Germany through the books of Karl May and that had a simple pronounciation in all languages. The first pair of shoes that was produced in an old slipper factory that had been deserted in World War II was a pair of moccasins.

The Sioux moccasin became a real story of success and it is still, today, a defining model in the Sioux collection. The hand-stitched moccasin seam that is visible on the top of the shoe is its stylish trademark. The moccasin style is the most frequently made model of our shoes manufactured. It is therefore no wonder that we still see ourselves as the market leader when it comes to moccasins.

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