In the late seventies, Steven Fernand bought a one-way ticket to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. He found a job with Zora the sandalmaker, starting out at $3 an hour, repairing various leathergoods and soon he’d earned enough to return to the States.
Fernand designed a line of shoes and sandals, and started his business in 1983 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, wholesaling Comfoot™ Shoes & Sandals into college towns, selling them personally to customers at art & craft fairs, and at his shop in the Ozarks. In 1986, he moved to the beautiful northwest Lower Peninsula of Michigan, set up shop, and incorporated.
Through the years, we have sold wholesale to retail stores in various cities, and sold retail to individual customers through direct mail, at art & craft fairs, and at our workshop/retail shop.
In the mid 90's, Steve Fernand licensed and trained The Aurora Shoe Company to make a few his original design shoes. The deal soon grew sour so Steve, unsatisfied with the quality of Aurora's craftsmanship and production method short-cuts, decided to sell his share of Aurora Shoe Company and terminated the licensing agreement. To this day the Aurora Shoe Company continues to make, and sell, lesser copies of Fernand's original designs at it's factory in upstate New York.
Copies of Fernand's designs have also come out of China, Portugal, and Mexico.
In 2002, Steven asked his friend (and bandmate in the popular Northern Michigan Cajun band “K Jones and the Benzie Playboyz”), Tim McKay, a construction worker, musician, and maker of things to lend a hand in the shoe shop. After several weeks Tim decided to give up home building completely and started working full time for Fernand Footwear.
When, in 2005, Steven decided that he was ready to move on and out of the shoe business, he offered to sell the business to Tim. So, as of January 2006, Steven Fernand passed the shoe hammer to Tim McKay, ensuring that the business Steven had started 23 years earlier could continue into the foreseeable future.
Today, Tim McKay continues to make shoes and other leather products in the same historical barn in Benzonia, MI. Together with his small staff, Tim also makes hundreds of bags and belts a year to be sold throughout the US, Japan, and Europe.
