If, to paraphrase a popular adage, shoes make the man, then Armin Oehler creates quite the stylish first impression. He’s always been crazy about shoes—high-end, fashionable shoes, to be exact. That’s not surprising, given the fact that he grew up working in his family’s nearly 200-year-old tannery in Marbach, Germany, which supplies leather and suede for the world’s top luxury brands of shoes, handbags, clothing, and automobile interiors.
An engineer by degree, Armin arrived in Greenville in 1999 for an internship with a German company—and never left. About 10 years ago, while working in the automotive industry, he began sketching designs for men’s dress shoes. On a whim in 2016, he took several of his designs to a trade show in Charlotte, and came back with orders for his shoes. That modest success spurred him to start his own business, Oehler LLC.
It’s a shoe that goes from the fairway to the clubhouse.
Grounded by COVID-19 last year, Armin built a golf simulator in his Greenville warehouse to realize his idea of making golf shoes. “We made several prototypes to test in the simulator,” he says. “I didn’t want to do a traditional golf shoe; I wanted one that was more fashionable.” The version he finally settled on integrates functionality with fashion. “It’s a shoe that goes from the fairway to the clubhouse,” he says of the hybrid he calls The Club. “It’s the little black dress of golf shoes,” adds Armin’s wife, Sara, driving home the point. Although he couldn’t take his new line to trade shows in 2020, he sent photographs of the golf shoe to his retailers and hit a hole in one.
The Club shoe looks to Italy’s Vibram company, supplier of premium soles for pro golfers, for its soft-spike rubber sole, which Armin cushions with foam and lines above and below with luxe naturally breathable leather from his family’s tannery. His first model sports a lean line, setting it apart from more boxy American sneakers, and is covered in an alligator print. A line of matching belts is currently in production.
As a small-batch producer, the company does not distribute its products to large chain retailers. Instead, the Oehler brand is sold in men’s boutiques, where it capitalizes on its cachet—an irresistible marriage of European tradition and Southern flair.
You can find Armin Oehler golf shoes locally at Rush Wilson Ltd. and Smith & James, or via arminoehler.com.
