Tessa Manning was born and raised in Hollviken, Sweden where painting on clogs (and just about everything else) is a tradition. Tessa left Sweden for Vail in 1991, bound for Vail, a place she had only heard about but knew she wanted to live. Also in 1991, after attending St. John's university in Minnesota, he decided to head for he mountains of Vail. His job at the Antlers allowed him to ski durin
g the day and work through the night. Except fot the night that he met Tessa at Gondo's Bar in Lionshead that is....
Though Tessa was the only women at Gondo's that night, she had eyes only for Chris. They dates several years before marrying in 1995. That same year, Chris and Tessa realized that the hand-painted clogs that Tessa wore through town were walking advertisements for a potentially successful local business. They started selling hand-painted clogs at craft fairs in the region and n 1998 opened their first store in Minturn. the clogs' popularity surged, allowing the couple to open he Swedish Clogs Cabin in Lionshead in 2000. Tessa and Chris shop internationally for leathers and fabrics and have the clogs assembled in Sweden. They are then shipped to Tessa who hand-paints then with her own designs(or the customized requests for shoppers). The colorful clogs have found their way onto the feet of locals, visitors to the valley, and celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Mario Batali. They are shipped to customers throughout the world from Turkey to Europe and Australia. Chris and Tessa love mountain living, the tight-knit community of Minturn where they reside, abnd the ability to experience the great outdoors with their three besutiful girls, Axelina, Amalia, and Aiden.
- Taken from the 2008 Calander of Vail undressed, VVCF
