Baabuk: the Swiss-designed wool shoe brand made in Portugal and Nepal

A pair of wool sneakers doesn’t usually cross borders quite this often. Baabuk’s shoes are dreamed up in Switzerland, then take shape on century-old looms in Portugal or under the hands of artisans in Nepal, before landing on someone’s feet anywhere in between. It’s an unusual supply chain for something as simple as a slipper, and it’s precisely that simplicity — wool, wool, and more wool — that the brand builds everything around.

Where it all began

Baabuk is a family-run brand, and its starting point is almost stubbornly old-fashioned: wool, worked the way it has been for generations, rather than synthetic fibres and factory shortcuts. The name itself nods to that pastoral origin — the world of sheep and shepherds — and the brand has stayed close to it ever since, choosing natural materials over trend-driven design.

The range

The Baabuk catalogue is built around three families: sneakers, slippers, and sandals, all sharing the same wool DNA but each suited to a different moment. The sneakers and sandals are the brand’s everyday, outdoor-facing pieces — a recent addition, the Sami Sandal, is woven entirely from Portuguese wool and finished in the brand’s Portuguese workshop. The slippers lean domestic and cosy, made for indoor life, with recent releases including the Kanga Moo, a design inspired by Swiss dairy cows and launched to coincide with the Swiss national holiday, and the Ice Wooler, a limited-edition colourway in grey and yellow. Between them, the range covers most of what a wool-loving wardrobe might need, from outdoor sneakers to house slippers.

How it’s made

Baabuk splits its production by product type, and each split comes with its own wool story. The sneakers and sandals are made in Portugal, on looms the brand describes as centuries old, using wool sourced from Portuguese sheep. The slippers, meanwhile, are made by hand in Nepal, by local artisans, using wool from New Zealand sheep. It’s a deliberate division: heritage weaving technique for the structured outdoor pieces, hand craftsmanship for the softer indoor ones. The dyes used across the range are REACH-certified, a regulatory standard for the chemicals used in colouring textiles. For anyone wearing the shoes, the practical upshot is fairly direct — natural fibres against the skin, and a construction process that leans on skilled handwork rather than mass automation.

What the brand stands for

Baabuk is B-Corp certified, a status awarded to companies that meet defined standards of social and environmental performance alongside transparency. According to the brand, its designs are guided by innovation, quality, and what it calls a love of natural materials — a fairly consistent thread running through the choice of wool over synthetics, and small-scale artisan production over larger factory lines. Baabuk also describes its own sneakers, slippers and boots as some of the most comfortable made from wool, a claim that reflects the brand’s own positioning rather than an independent measure. Shoes bought from the brand come with a manufacturer’s guarantee lasting 365 days.

Right now

Baabuk’s recent releases show the two sides of its range moving in parallel. On the outdoor side, the Sami Sandal arrived in August, built entirely from Portuguese wool and finished at the brand’s Portuguese atelier. On the indoor side, the Kanga Moo slipper launched in July, timed to the Swiss national holiday and inspired by the country’s dairy cows — a small, playful nod to where the brand was conceived. And in late September, a limited grey-and-yellow edition of the Ice Wooler sneaker joined the line-up, a seasonal variation on an existing style rather than a new silhouette. Taken together, the releases suggest a brand that keeps its core materials and construction steady, while letting colour, pattern and limited runs do the seasonal storytelling.