The people behind Cordewener

As the elder of the two Cordewener brothers, Dave was in his father's workshop early on. He completed his apprenticeship as an orthopaedic shoemaker in 2006 as the best in his region in North Rhine-Westphalia and became Germany's youngest master orthopaedic shoemaker in 2008, at just 21.

His specialty is insoles and custom shoes, where every millimetre counts. He takes a holistic view, looking beyond the feet to the knees, pelvis, back and overall movement.

He's the creative one in the family: he designed the Cordewener insoles and shaped much of the look of the stores. Outside work, this father of three enjoys football and tennis and is interested in health and nutrition.

Even as a small boy, Marc was in his father's workshop, so the question of what career he'd choose never really came up. He completed his apprenticeship as an orthopaedic shoemaker in 2008 and his master training in 2012 in Düsseldorf and Hanover.

He specialises in complex orthopaedic care and custom shoemaking, and is an expert in the gait analysis and insole fitting. What fascinates him is that no two feet are alike – every case is individual.

He holds himself to the highest standard of quality and wants to help people move through life more easily. In his free time he enjoys football and tennis – and became his own patient after an ankle fracture in 2015.

Born in Wuppertal, Germany, to a Swiss mother, he came to Switzerland in 2003 as a competitive swimmer, completed his professional training in Magglingen, and remained seasonally active there every year until 2023. He spent the rest of each year on Maui, where he also launched his and Marc and Dave's first joint project – YLAMOG.

The (long-term) effects of walking have fascinated Constantin ever since he hung up his swimming trunks. Books by Swiss general practitioner Dr Christian Larsen sparked a deep interest in him for how we move on land, in shoes, and especially on mostly flat ground. He spent years wearing flip-flops, watched people suffer from the resulting conditions, and has since made preventing surgery his goal.