Petru & Claymoor is a Romanian shoe brand founded by Mircea Cioponea and Petru Coca, specializing in traditionally handmade footwear. When I first wrote about them back in 2020 (this post was updated in 2026), they were still a relatively new name on the scene, but one that immediately caught my attention.
For those of you who were into shoes before the Instagram generation took over, you might recognize Mircea’s name from his excellent shoe blog, Claymoor’s List. It was one of the better shoe blogs of its time, and Mircea eventually stepped away from it to focus his attention on creating his own shoe company.
It is always interesting to see someone make that transition from enthusiast to actually becoming part of the industry. Mircea had spent years looking at, studying, and writing about great shoes, and Petru & Claymoor became a way of turning that passion into something tangible.
Their project began around 2018/2019, with the shoes being made in Romania by a small team of shoemakers using traditional hand-making techniques.
And when I say handmade, I mean actually handmade.
The shoes were hand lasted, hand welted, hand sole stitched, and finished using the traditional methods that you would normally associate with bespoke footwear. Heels were built from individual layers of leather rather than attached as a pre-made unit, and bespoke orders involved a trial fitting before the final shoes were completed.
This type of shoemaking has a long history in Central and Eastern Europe, and you can see some of that heritage in Petru & Claymoor’s aesthetic. There is an Austro-Hungarian influence to many of the shapes and patterns—a look that you also find throughout Hungary, Austria, Romania, and other parts of the region.
At the time of this original post, Petru & Claymoor was primarily focused on bespoke footwear. Their prices were remarkably low for what they were producing: €250 for the last, €1,250 for shoes and €1,500 for boots. That meant a first bespoke pair could be had for around €1,500–€1,750. Those prices are obviously historical and no longer representative of the brand today, but they demonstrate just how Petru & Claymoor entered the market.
They were offering genuinely handmade bespoke footwear for prices that were becoming increasingly difficult to find in Western Europe.
What initially caught my eye, however, was not simply the construction. It was the shoes themselves.
I really liked a lot of what they were making, particularly some of the more unusual combinations. At the time, three pairs stood out to me: a green exotic-leather tassel loafer, a burgundy suede semi-brogue and a penny loafer made from an unusual textured hide.
My favorite was probably the tassel loafer. I remember thinking that the same shoe made in navy blue would be something else entirely. And that willingness to play with unusual leathers and colors while keeping the underlying shoe relatively classic has remained one of the more interesting aspects of Petru & Claymoor.
They were also producing bespoke gloves in materials such as peccary and deer. I remember being particularly interested in the peccary gloves, as I have always struggled to find gloves that fit as closely as I would like without having excess length in the fingers.
At the time, the company had ambitions to expand internationally, participate in trunk shows and eventually develop footwear beyond its original bespoke offering.
Looking back at this post six years later, that is probably the most interesting part.
Petru & Claymoor was still finding its feet when I originally wrote about them. Today, the company is considerably more developed, the collection has expanded, and the shoes and business have evolved substantially from what you see in these original photographs.
I therefore decided to leave much of this post as a snapshot of where the brand was in 2020 rather than rewriting history with everything I know today.
If anything, the photographs make that evolution even more interesting.
And for those wanting to see what Petru & Claymoor has become since this article was originally published, I have written a new 2026 feature on the brand, its handmade footwear, its Transylvanian roots, and where it stands today.
Learn more here: https://petru-claymoor.com/
—Justin FitzPatrick, The Shoe Snob
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