Manitobah Mukluks: Building success from the ground up - Action News
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Manitobah Mukluks: Building success from the ground up

When Sean McCormick started selling leather and fur to aboriginal artisans as a high school student, he never expected his company would someday be one of the fastest-growing footwear brands in Canada and a model of aboriginal business success.

'This is a company that really is from the community,' says company founder Sean McCormick

Manitobah Mukluks: Building success from the ground up

9 years ago
Duration 2:23
When Sean McCormick started selling leather and fur to aboriginal artisans as a high school student, he never expected his company would someday be one of the fastest-growing footwear brands in Canada - and a model of aboriginal business success

When Sean McCormick started selling leather and fur to aboriginal artisans as a high school student, he never expected his company would someday be one of the fastest growing footwear brands in Canada and a model of aboriginal business success.

Sean McCormick says he never expected his company would someday be one of the fastest-growing footwear brands in Canada. (CBC)
"The brand resonates with people," McCormick said from his office in inner-city Winnipeg.

"This is a company that really is from the community. I really am a Mtisman growing up wearing mukluks;that's not an invented storyThe product is unbelievable. These are the best winter boots in the world. There isn't a more Canadian piece of footwear than the mukluk."

Manitobah Mukluks manufactures and sells traditionally-beaded leather and fur slippers, shoes and boots,with and without rubber soles.

Kate Moss is seen in Notting Hill, wearing a pair of Manitobah Mukluks, before meeting an unidentified friend for lunch at Zucca in March 2004 in London. (Paul Ashby/Getty Images)
Actress Megan Fox is seen wearing Manitobah Mukluks as she arrives on the set of Zeroville in Los Angeles in November 2014. (Cousart/JFXimages/WENN.com)
Cindy Crawford wearing a pair of Manitobah Mukluks. (Supplied by Manitobah Mukluks)
They can be found in high-end retailers such as Holt Renfrew and Nordstrom, and they're sold in more than 50 countries through the company's online shop.

"It is a product we are proud to carry," Holt Renfrew's Alexandra Weston, director of brand strategy, said in a statement. She oversees the H Project, a unique in-store shop thatpromotes culture, craft and artisans from around the world.

"To have an incredibly well-made, high-quality product, where you know exactly who touched it, how many hands, is the height of luxury."

Indeed, the company's moccasins and mukluks have been seen on the feet of celebrities like Kate Moss, Jessica Biel and Cindy Crawford.

"The celebrity culture helps to drive the product awareness and that's what I'm trying to do. I want more people to know about Manitobah and its products and that really helps," McCormick said.

Something is obviously working.

Manitobah Mukluks is on last year's Profit 500 list of the fastest-growing companies in Canada,posting nearly 300 per cent growth between 2008 and 2013 something thatMcCormick didn't expect when he started out in 1987.

"I imagined doing a million dollars in sales and we'll do a million dollars in a week now in a good week so the scale has just changed dramatically," he said.

But the company isn't just a business success, it's giving back to the community.

It provides an annual education bursary through The Centre for Aboriginal Human Resource Development that supports a select student studying finance or business at college or university.

Through its non-profit Storyboot Project, it creates partnerships with elders and artisans who create a limited collection of traditional mukluks and moccasins. The artist receives 100 per centof the profits for every Storyboot footwear sold.

Reviving a dying art

The company also launched a new initiative last year called The Storyboot School, which gives young people the opportunity to learn how to make mukluks from aboriginal artisans.

"The Storyboot School is to revive an art that's dying," instructor Marilyn Tanner-Spence said at a recent session.

Through its non-profit Storyboot Project, Manitobah Mukluks creates partnerships with elders and artisans who create a limited collection of traditional mukluks and moccasins. The artist receives 100 per cent of the profits for every Storyboot footwear sold. (Karen Pauls)
"So many people are losing this. The elders are passing on, the skills are being lost,so we need to keep the art and culture alive."

On this day, Cheyenne Call and her brother Garrett are finishing their first pair of leather moccasins.

"I was a little nervous because I'm not much of a crafty person,but I guess you don' t know until you try," Cheyenne said as she held up her pair of black leather and fur slippers.

Sitting beside her, Garrett said he'll be proud to wear his moccasins.

"The design is a logo from a skateboarding brand. It's my first time making it so I wanted it simple," he said.

"I think it's a skill I could carry on if I really wanted to, a skill to be carried on in the generations."

As she helps them tighten their stitches, Tanner-Spence beams.

Staff at Manitobah Mukluks sewing products in the company's Winnipeg plant. (Karen Pauls )
"I can't even tell you how happy I am to see this because when people learn to make something, they have a sense of pride," she said.

That's part of McCormick's motivation.

"We need positive examples in our [indigenous]community," he explained.

"We've got lots of unemployment, a ton of social issues,and education is part of getting out of that and so is economics. So Manitobah encapsulates that stuff. We're a private business but we're almost a social enterprise. We're giving kids and aboriginal kids, would-be entrepreneurs,an example of what's possible."

The commercial success has meant McCormick had to outsource some of the production to factories in China and Vietnam.

The company says it hasan aboriginal hiring policyand35 to40 per cent of itsstaff areaboriginal, including90 per cent of itsadministration.

McCormick hires as many First Nations workers as he can but said that's not always possible.

"Where we have non-aboriginal staff, it's also a very inclusive place to work, a very respectful place to work," he said.

"Whoever is working with Manitobah, we're all pulling for what the mission is and it doesn't really matter where you are from."

Garrett Call, left, and his sister Cheyenne make their first pair of leather moccasins at Manitobah Mukluks' Storyboot School in Winnipeg. (Karen Pauls)