We Design · The leather alternative

Davos S.p.A. · Cavaso del Tomba, Treviso · Founded 1955

It looks like leather.
It outlasts leather.
It's Thunit.

Davos has been producing rubber sheets in northern Italy since 1955. Their registered flagship — Thunit® — is the world benchmark for leather-alternative sole material: flexible, abrasion-resistant, waterproof, with 800+ finishes and made from recycled production waste. The real Thunit is only from Davos.

Founded

1955

Finishes

800+

Plant

20,000 m²

Request a Thunit sample See the finish range

Vero Thunit.
Only from Davos. Cavaso del Tomba · Italy

What it is

A rubber sheet —
the way describing
a Ferrari as
a car.

Davos developed Thunit as a response to a specific problem: natural leather soles look beautiful, feel premium — but they are not waterproof, they scuff and abrade quickly, and they are expensive. The shoe industry needed a material that delivered the leather look and the leather hand, but with better functional performance.

Thunit is the answer they built. Flexible like leather. Workable like leather — it can be skived, stitched, stamped and finished in the same way. Abrasion resistance and water resistance that natural leather cannot match. And 800+ surface finishes, from classic leather grain to shiny, matt, hot-stamped and more, with new finishes released every season following market trends.

THUNIT is a Davos registered trademark. The "Vero Thunit" — the real Thunit — is only manufactured by Davos. It is imitated but not replicated.

Cavaso del Tomba · 20,000 m² of state-of-the-art rubber production, opened 2007.

01Thunit vs. leather

The performance
comparison.

Eight properties that decide whether a sole material is fit for purpose — and how the two materials compare on each.

Property	Natural leather	Thunit®
AppearancePremium, natural grain	Virtually identical — 800+ finishes including all leather looks
FlexibilityGood	Equal or superior
WorkabilityGood — skivable, stitchable	Equal — same processes apply
Abrasion resistanceModerate	Higher
Water resistanceLow — leather absorbs moisture	High — waterproof
ConsistencyVaries batch to batch	Controlled production — consistent
SustainabilityNatural but resource-intensive	Recycled rubber waste — 100% recyclable
CostHigher	Competitive

Source: Davos S.p.A. product documentation and technical claims.

02The finish range

Eight hundred
and counting.

The number that defines the Thunit offering. 800+ surface finishes — and growing. Every season, Davos's design team reads the footwear market and proposes new finishes calibrated to what brands and designers are buying.

How to order a finish

Davos releases seasonal collections. Instyle stocks a working range; for specific finishes from the full catalogue we order to your spec — allow 4–6 weeks for non-stocked finishes.

Colour rangeLightest naturals → deepest blacks

Every tone in between, with seasonal palettes added each collection.

ShinyPatent-leather effect

High-gloss surfaces with depth and reflectivity matching dressed leather.

MattContemporary minimal

Flat, soft-touch finish for pared-back contemporary footwear.

GrainFull-grain at any scale

Embossed grain from fine pebble to deep crocodile and reptile patterns.

Hot-stampingLogo & pattern capability

Embossed brand marks and pattern repeats applied during finishing.

Special effectsTrend-led, seasonal

Custom effects developed each season — request the current swatch book.

03Where Thunit goes

Four product
worlds.

Dress & formalThe core application

Men's Oxford and Derby shoes, women's heeled shoes, court shoes. The leather-look finish at a competitive price — with better durability across thousands of steps.

Casual & walkingThe growing category

Loafers, slip-ons, everyday leather shoes. The durability advantage of Thunit over leather is most visible in everyday-wear footwear that takes weather and pavement.

Women's fashionWhere 800 finishes earn their keep

Seasonal colours, hot-stamped patterns and special effects that align Thunit with each season's palette and tonal direction.

Leather goodsBeyond footwear

Wallets, card holders, bag bases — anywhere a leather-look, water-resistant surface is needed without the cost or moisture issues of natural leather.

04The eco story

Davos is GREEN.
Thunit is the proof.

Thunit's raw material is Thunit itself. Sheets are manufactured using recovered production waste — the burrs and powders released during rubber sheet production, the cuttings and processing scraps. A totally recyclable material loop means production generates almost no waste that leaves the facility.

The Cavaso del Tomba plant was designed specifically with environmental harmony as a design criterion. The production system includes a water-based painting system (replacing solvent-based conventional systems), a computerised weighing system, and a cooling-water recirculation system. The plant exists in active partnership with the landscape and environmental context around it.

Davos is an active environmental and landscape conservation partner — and the company continuously adapts its products to international legislation on harmful substances, anticipating restrictions rather than reacting to them.

✓ ISO 9001:2015 (TUV) ✓ SATRA Footwear Technology Member ✓ EcoCircle production loop

EcoCircle — Davos's closed material loop. Production waste returns to feedstock.

05Also in the Davos range

Beyond Thunit —
five more rubber categories.

Davos manufactures more than Thunit. The following are part of the catalogue and available through Instyle — ask our team for samples and availability.

Expanded sheetsMicroporous · cushioning

Lightweight microporous rubber for cushioning applications in sole construction where weight reduction is a priority alongside flexibility.

Sneaker rubberAbrasion · grip · aesthetic

Rubber sheets formulated for the specific abrasion, grip and aesthetic demands of sneaker sole production.

Climbing rubberMaximum friction on rock

Technical climbing rubber engineered for maximum friction on rock surfaces — for technical outdoor footwear manufacturers.

Rubber bandsWelt borders · sole edges

Rubber strips and bands for edge applications, welt borders, and sole-perimeter finishing.

Finished rubber solesTrekking · Motorcycle · Soccer · Safety

Finished soles across four end markets, plus the Contact Sole with CDS inserts for guaranteed grip on iced surfaces.

06The Davos story

Seventy years.
One material. World leader.

Davos Rubber Industry was founded in 1955 in northern Italy — in the Montebelluna area, the heartland of Italian technical footwear manufacturing. The story starts simply: a shoe factory owner realised he couldn't control the quality of his rubber soles if he depended on external suppliers. So he built his own rubber facility.

Within a few years the rubber operation outgrew the shoe factory. Davos stopped making shoes and committed entirely to rubber — first soles, then sheets. Lino Piccolo took over management in the 1960s and set the company on its global growth path.

In 1970 Davos moved to new plants at Crocetta del Montello and Cornuda — increasing capacity and adding rubber flooring and technical automotive rubber to the range. In 2007 the new headquarters at Cavaso del Tomba opened — 20,000 m² of state-of-the-art production. Davos also maintains a facility in Sri Lanka, with distribution that covers the whole of Italy and international markets worldwide.

Cavaso del Tomba HQ · ISO 9001:2015 (TUV) certification.

It looks like leather.It outlasts leather.It's Thunit.