A new category of footwear is changing the footwear business and the approach to footwear design. There are traditional categories of men’s and women’s shoes. Now unisex gender footwear is popular. This requires product developers to have a new footwear education before designing a new shoe.

Unisex footwear design is challenging but it’s being done with increasing success. The key challenge is designing the lasts of the shoe. There are anatomical differences between men’s and ladies’ feet. Men’s and ladies’ shoe designs try to respect these differences. Product developers are now trying to build footwear that can be marketed to both men and women.

Unisex footwear tries to be comfortable for both men and women. Product designers are trying to accomplish this task by adding a little extra padding or enabling the wearer to make minor adjustments to the shoe for personal comfort. This may include laces or closures that can be adjusted to help the shoe feel more natural on the foot.

I started in men’s footwear thinking I would eventually move into women’s footwear. Women’s footwear seemed like a crossword puzzle. There were so many variables. You could have a high heel or a low heel. Square toes or pointy toes. Men’s shoes seemed like they only had one variable. They had low or flat heels. It is a basic shoe. Men’s footwear seemed to be simpler but I discovered it is challenging. The years have taught me that you have to put a lot of creativity into making a shoe that a man would buy.

I am a female footwear product designer. I don’t have the perspective of a male to understand what a guy would wear. I have to really think about it. I have to ask myself: what would he wear? Why would he wear it? Why would he buy it? These same questions apply when designing unisex footwear. Always keep the wearer in mind when designing a new shoe and work backward from there.

One of the things that we can all do if we own a footwear brand is innovate. If one of your products sold really well, it might be tempting to re-sell it the next year. But you can’t make the same shoe that you did last spring because your consumers want to see new products all the time.

In order to continue using your best-selling products, you have to take the aspects that your customers loved about your footwear and modify them slightly. Make small changes, such as adapting the top-line cut of the shoe. You could change the height or the shape of the shoes, or add a particular embellishment. You can change the colors of your footwear for the new season too.

The idea is to make subtle changes that don’t compromise the style of the shoe. This way, your customers will still be happy with the product, but you are also modifying your product line to stay on trend.

You could change the structure of your footwear. When I say structure, I mean the way the bottoming is done, such as the heels and the soles of the shoes. For example, if you used a very thin sole and a small heel for one of your women’s products last spring, you might want to change this to a platform shoe or one with a higher heel.

The change in heel height might only be two centimeters, but it’s still something new and different. It’s basically like a brand-new line of footwear, even though a large portion of the product is the same as it was last spring.

This way, you can take a successful product from last year, adapt it slightly, and re-sell without looking like you’re repeating yourself.

When we’re first initially launching a brand, we really need to think about where’s the opportunity. Where do we want this brand to sit within my price zones? Is it a good brand? Is it a better brand? Is it a best brand? That’s some of the terminology we use. If it’s an opening price, is it something in the middle or is it something that’s high end? Depending on where the brand will sit, that determines what the materials are. For example, if you’re opening price, you’re not going to have any leather in the line, and the materials will be all manmade. If it’s something that’s in the mid-tier, there might be one or two key items that you might have leather in. The leather will be where you think it’s really important for the customer, but the majority of it may be manmade. Once you get into some of the best brands or something that’s a little bit more designer inspired, that’s where you’ll use a lot of the better materials. Even within leather, you’ll have, different qualities of leather from India, Italy, etc. All of that fluctuates, but understanding the brand DNA and the pricing architecture will determine the maternal.

Each category should have a price point. You should know what you’re designing into. You should know your wholesale price point and you should know your retail price point. You need to need to learn the wholesale part because it will enhance your design capabilities. It makes you smarter. To know what shoes sold and what they sold for. This is what the margins were. This is what the markdowns were if they were put on sale. How many points are they making? You need to know all those things. It’s very important.

There are 330-340 million consumers in the US who buy footwear. Businesses need to take a lot of careful consideration when designing and developing their footwear so they produce products that consumers want to buy.

In America, we import about two and a half billion pairs of shoes every single year. Looking at this per capita, this equates to around 7.2 or 7.3 pairs of shoes for every single man, woman, and child in this country every single year.

American consumers import and purchase more footwear per capita than any country in the world. We don’t have the resources in our own country to meet the needs of the American population so we import a lot of materials from other countries.

Of the two and a half billion pairs of shoes, we may produce around 30 million pairs a year here in the US. Production takes a lot of capital-intensive investments, as well as high skilled labor to ensure that the footwear is of the highest quality.

Often, companies have to figure out more innovative ways to source their products and distribute this product through the supply chain. And this supply chain involves the movement of materials through several other countries before they arrive in America.

For example, they may be shipped to Vietnam from China, then exported out of Vietnam across the Pacific to the port of Long Beach or the port of LA. The products are then distributed to a distribution center in Southern California or somewhere in the Midwest, such as Louisville or Memphis. Finally, it is distributed out to a retailer or consumer, which can be in any state of the country.

So, as a business, it’s important to focus on sustainable practice when sourcing the materials for your footwear. This is important for both a consumer awareness perspective and an environmentally friendly perspective.

When it comes to retail, it’s really important to understand its history.
The birth of the modern fashion idea started with Charles Frederick Worth in the late 1800s. The idea of retail started to develop, especially at the turn of the century, by folks like Selfridges and Macy’s.
Here’s why: All the way up until that point, you always went to a tailor or a dressmaker to have something made specific to you. Macy’s and Selfridges had to figure out how to get people into a store to buy mass-produced clothes.
Why on earth would you want to go buy something mass-produced, when even if you were not that wealthy, you could have your mother create something that fits you perfectly?
So, at the very beginning, Macy’s and Selfridges had to figure out how to get people into the store. It had to be about more than the product. It had to be about the service and the experience. Hence, customer experience.
If you’ve ever watched any of the films about Macy’s or Selfridges or read any of the books, you’d know they were the ones that created things like the perfume counters on the bottom floor. Why? Because when you spray smells, people react to them. Consequently, they’re gonna stay longer. It’s also going to get people to come in.
Nowadays, that might look like a DJ or an influencer coming in to talk/meet fans. Back then, it was Charles Lindbergh who showed up at the Selfridges in London after his transatlantic flight.
In short, retail isn’t just about a transaction. It’s so much more than that. Hence, there are a lot of moving pieces in retail.

Historically, trade shows were an enormous vehicle for moving your brand. Smaller brands who were looking to get their brand out there in a larger way or bigger brands who were looking to increase visibility would get a booth at a trade show. They would put their booths together as if it were a store, and buyers would walk the floor. They’d come and check out the brands to see what they had. It was really a huge vehicle, and a lot of people used it all the time. They were typically done in New York and Las Vegas. There were some on the West Coast for apparel as well. You would have a store in South Carolina, like a family-owned shop that’s been in your family and you’re looking for new product, fly to Vegas, walk around, and place all your buys. That’s not going to go away because people will still need a place to shop the market and will still need to see what new things are out there. But, it’s going to change.

Within everything, we have to evolve, so trade shows are evolving. ComplexCon’s something that’s evolving. Everyone wants to experience something, and if you can bring it to the consumer, and you can have that conversation. It’s all about driving conversation because the same brands that are doing the pop-ups, the same brands that you may find at a trade show, you’ll also find at ComplexCon or Sneakercon or any of those things. It’s all to drive conversation. These things won’t cancel out the other, but they will continue to evolve.

Sourcing is one of the biggest components when you talk about manufacturing and production for your fashion business. Sourcing will basically dictate your costs. The key to keeping costs down is to do research and source worldwide for the best rates. For Elle B. Zhou’s founder, Elle B. Mambetov, this means having her brand’s dinnerware made in Poland, while her fashion collection is produced in London, and digital printing is done in both the United Kingdom and U.S.

Fabrics are sourced from other locations, based on cost comparisons. For new garment tags, Mambetov priced them out in several different countries before deciding. Sometimes, pricing is going to be better to have items made in the U.S. rather than China. Why? Once you factor in Chinese New Year, that’s going to cause a time delay. Then there is the extra cost for shipping overseas. Once you add the shipping cost, you may actually get it faster in the U.S. for basically the same price.

Time and shipping costs are things you want to factor in when you’re sourcing a product. Learn from online fashion education, conduct research on manufacturers, and look everywhere before making your final decision rather than default to sourcing in China. You also need to think about the quality.

Mambetov knows when she’s sourcing garment lining she will find impeccable quality in London without having to oversee the process in person. To take away the guesswork, she sources from reputable companies she has bought from in the past that have produced high quality product.

When sourcing new fabrics, always make sure to ask manufacturers for swatches. They should send you these swatches at no cost. You are offering them business, so they will send these for free in hopes of winning your business with quality fabrics and materials.

Sourcing can be complex. It also can be simple. It just depends on what you’re going for. If you’re a company that wants to simplify your supply chain, then you usually go for an all-in approach, right?
Go with one company, they’ll source everything for you. They’ll produce the product for you. You pay them one price, you bring it in, and then you sell it.
If you’re a company that cares about where everything comes from, if your customer is concerned about sustainability, if your customer is concerned about child labor practices, if your customer is concerned about the environment, you can’t put your trust in one company and assume that they’re going to also have those things top of mind as well.
In today’s world and in today’s market, how the customer is so important to how people buy and what they produce, go to each company individually. Maybe you have to source a button from this factory and fabric from this country and this factory and maybe zippers from this country in this factory because you really are looking into the business practices, the reputation of the company, who they are, and what their story is.
Then, when you bring all of those pieces together, you can communicate with your customer, “Hey, we were thinking about you in this entire process. That’s why it took us three months to find three components to get you this hoodie because we know what’s important to you and we know that sustainability and the environment are also important to you.
If you care about who your customers are, maybe you can find a company that does all in production that also has the same business ideals that you do and the ideals that your customers have. But from my experience, sometimes it takes going to three different manufacturers, getting different components, and then bringing it all together to make the final product so that you can be really proud of the product that you’ve produced.

When you’re looking at materials, understand what the function is. If we’re looking at a sportswear shoe, are we looking to ensure that there is a four-way stretch? Then we have to look at what that means in terms of our manufacturing partners to deliver that.

Is a four-way stretch going to influence the dyeability of the fabric? Is the dyeability of the fabric going to influence the tensile strength? Is that going to influence any sort of friction on the wearer’s foot?

These things all start from a material selection standpoint.

If it’s a sports shoe, do we want it to be moisture-wicking? Do we want it to take water away from the wearer’s foot during activity?

If it’s a boot, do we want to make sure that it’s wipeable? If it’s faux leather, real leather, or any other mixed material, are we going to ensure that mechanical finishes can be applied to it?

For example, a common material used in faux leather footwear is PU, which is polyurethane. It’s important for polyurethane that it passes stretch, heat, and temperature testing. Also, what is the dyeability of that fabric?

When we’re looking at materials, understand the purpose of your footwear. Is it for formal or creative purposes? Is it going to be able to reach the design aesthetic that you’re looking for?

Ensure that your material selection can be dyed, finished, and manufactured to your liking. Also, make sure it has a great hand feel and colorfastness.

These are all things to consider when selecting your materials.

Fashion merchandising has the ability to create and transform a retail store’s environment. Whether it’s selecting light wood furniture for an airy, beachy vibe or going with a darker wood to convey a more serious tone, small details set the store’s scene and invite customers to explore. It’s an extension of the design of the garment on display. What is the environment you envision that garment in?

It’s important to lay store merchandise out in a way that’s going to guide the customer around the store. Rather than having potential customers come in, see the first rack of things and leave, merchandising encourages the customers to stay. In the fashion business, you want customers to end up at the back of the store so they then have to make a circle through the store to view all of your merchandise.

Merchandising ties in fashion education and has a creative, theatrical flair that draws attention. When someone stops in front of your store’s window and takes a picture, you’ve already captured the interest of that person who’s now a future potential customer. Writing on the windows and displaying your Instagram QR code means people can scan it and easily go to your Instagram.

From there, a customer can get an online fashion education of sorts on the store, view the store’s Instagram highlights, learn more about the founders and their story, and find out what’s in store and what’s coming soon. All of these tactics are interactive for the client. We want to provide them with ways to interact with the brand and the store before they even step inside. This is something that’s really important in today’s digital age where consumers want to be more educated and conscious about where they shop.