The Goodyear making method is one of the most beautiful and authentic ways to make a dress shoe. Van Bommel has been producing Goodyear-made shoes at its factory in Moergestel for over a century. How this method of making got its name is an interesting bit of history.

In 1839, Charles Goodyear invented the vulcanisation process. This is a method of turning unusable sticky natural rubber into solid raw material. Forty years after Charles Goodyear's death, Frank Seiberling founded a car tyre company. As a tribute to the inventor of the vulcanisation process, he named the company Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

The son of the famous Charles Goodyear was also called Charles Goodyear. In 1874, Charles Goodyear junior bought the patent for a machine to stitch shoes together in an ingenious way, namely with 2 stitches. The method came to be known as the Goodyear making method. Charles bought the patent from Christian Dancel, a man who later also invented a machine to make barbed wire.

(Image below: Portrait of Charles Goodyear sr. (1800-1860).

Thus, the Goodyear family was an entrepreneurial family. Thanks to the father’s vulcanisation process, rubber soles exist today; thanks to junior's business acumen, Van Bommel can process these soles in a beautiful and artisanal way.