HISTORY

The Frasson family, known as i-Manoi, entered the shoe manufacturing market by creating wooden clogs with leather uppers in the Alto Padovano area. With the support of local workers, the business was started in the family sawmill where the wooden supports were processed and sold directly by the family itself.

I-Manoi introduced other materials in their productions besides wood and leather: the family had the intuition to use a lighter and more comfortable material, cork. As the market expanded, new prestigious productions joined the low-cost ones, adding production of wooden and cork soles combined with leather and rubber.

Besides wood and cork, the fourth generation of i-Manoi introduced Micro-compound EVA, the first plastic material in its history, light and versatile to create increasingly comfortable midsoles, combining them with rubber outsoles. During those years, the family had the intuition to combine the peculiarity of the new Micro-compound EVA with the rubber bottom designed by the VIBRAM brand. Since then, IMANOI has been producing high-performance soles for trekking and mountaineering and has entered into unbroken collaborations with world-leading brands in rubber production, which continue to this day.

The Frasson family, constantly focused on the future, decided to invest in an innovative production technique: they introduced a new material that was never considered in footwear production until then, namely polyurethane. Last year marked a turning point for the company, allowing it to open up to advanced European markets, producing high performance technical footwear bottoms for trekking, mountaineering, security, military and firefighting.

I Manoi presents the first patent recognized worldwide and then used by the best brands in the entire technical footwear sector at very high performance. Gilberto Frasson, the inventor, approached the field of rubber, to combine it with fabric and ensure greater grip to the footwear in the most challenging terrain, such as snowy, icy or slippery surfaces, testifying to the genius of finding new solutions and pushing into previously unknown fields. The Multifunction patent is recognised all over the world and, even today, productions spread across Europe, China and the United States of America.

From an identifying nickname to a concrete representation of a business journey of over 100 years: IMANOI was born in Asolo, at the will of Gilberto Frasson who, together with his three children and a dynamic team of professionals, has not yet stopped growing and reinventing himself. Since 2016, the company has not only been producing high-performance soles for technical footwear but has also become a global hub for luxury and haute couture bottoms, thanks to our belief: what we do is what we love to do most.

After a year of sampling, IMANOI will start producing the first organic polyurethane soles on 1 March 2021.
Biologic polyurethane joins a range of products and technologies that use waste and recycled materials, demonstrating the commitment to an eco-sustainable future that has become a concrete reality.