Shoe story

For those of you who have a fetish for high-heeled shoes, here's an interesting blog post from Laura Goldstein of Fashion Inc, who tells us what's the key to Prada's success in this difficult-to-crack market:

Currently Prada controls between 9 and 10 percent of the luxury shoe market. What's their key to success? Here's a bit of trivia: C.E.O Patrizio Bertelli had his shoe factory and produced shoes under the brand names Granello and Sir Robert before he met Miuccia and paired his factory to her brand. Both of his brands have been discontinued, but he seized on a pretty simple idea that he put in place at Prada. Keep the same lasts and rotate them between the brands. The last is a solid mould that a shoe is built around. Toes and heels and the other bits can be altered easily -- it is the last that is the tough nut to crack. Once you have one that works, customers can walk into a store and know what size they'll wear and be reassured that the shoes will almost certainly be as comfortable as others they have bought from the company.

Bertelli did another smart thing. In the 1990s, while he was buying big brands like Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, he was also travelling the Marche region of Italy buying up and signing deals with shoe factories that specializied in high end high heels. Now he can have the upper -- the stylish part of the shoe -- sewn in Eastern Europe and still guarantee that customers will still experience the same fit.

Brilliant!

Image courtesy: Prada.com