The Daily Telegraph

It always comes back to the shoes

- Marthaloui­sa.com launches on March 15

Three decades ago, when Susanne and Christoph Botschen opened a small upmarket fashion boutique called Theresa in Munich, there were only a handful of designer shoe-names.

Doesn’t that sound quaint? The footwear market had its big bang in the late Nineties, when every fashion brand decided to launch its own footwear line.

The Botschens’ trajectory has been similarly spectacula­r. In 2006 the boutique was extended online as mytheresa. com. Eight years later, when the business was acquired by Neiman Marcus, the US department chain, it was generating around €130 million (£115 million) a year.

Since that sale in 2014, the Botschens have been enjoying themselves, mainly by doing what they love best – hatching another retail plan. Next week sees its fruition with the debut of Marthaloui­sa.com, a website dedicated to shoes with around 80 designers initially, ranging in price from eye watering to contempora­ry

(ie, affordable luxury).

Anticipati­on is high. Last week’s launch party, in a suite in the extravagan­tly redecorate­d Crillon Hotel on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, was notably well attended. On the balcony, three upside down mannequins modelled shoes as the Eiffel Tower sparkled in the distance.

This playful glamour is in keeping with the whole venture, which raises one eyebrow at our infinite capacity to buy shoes we don’t need while making the experience as enjoyable and guilt free as possible. As well as still life angles, customers will be able to see close-up footage of the shoes in motion – because walking matters, right? Sizes span from 35 to 42 (UK 2-9) – good news for the customer, but it means the Botschens have had to invest in a lot of stock at a time when businesses are moving away from that model.

E-tailers such as farfetch.com, which don’t own any inventory but act as online marketplac­es, are flavour of the moment. Not only that, but designer brands are finally getting to grips with the internet and beefing up their own websites.

Yet, thanks to their track record, the Botschens have reeled in an impressive shoal of names, from the familiar – Dolce & Gabbana, Ferragamo, Victoria Beckham, Valentino, Fendi, Prada and Balenciaga – to the new such as Polly Plume, Oscar Tiye and Darner Socks.

It’s not as if demand for shoes is shrinking, unlike for clothes. The global footwear market is set to reach $430billion (£310bn) by 2024 and even if most of that demand is for trainers, this is territory fashion labels – whether by shrewd calculatio­n, or for purely creative reasons – have confidentl­y colonised. Arguably many of the most interestin­g technologi­cal advances in apparel manifest themselves first in shoes, as eco start-ups experiment with leather alternativ­es derived from mushroom or pineapple skin, and Nike and adidas toil in their labs to engineer springier, more comfortabl­e soles.

As Susanne says, “a woman might wear trainers in the morning and a kitten heel sling-back at night. Shoes are the easiest way to update or transform an outfit. I’ve been walking around as a retailer for 30 years, often in the wrongsized shoes. My feet are what you might call difficult. That doesn’t stop me loving shoes.” She currently owns “several hundred” pairs, including the dainty Bottega Venetas she was wearing when we met.

The last shoe-only online enterprise was shoescribe.com, owned by Federico Marchetti, owner of the yoox /netaporter group. It never achieved the right mix and closed in 2015. Nor is Marthaloui­sa short of competitio­n. Other e-tailers have shoes – lots of them, and that’s a problem, says Susanne.

Marthaloui­sa aims to streamline the search while conveying a richness of choice. If it succeeds, bets are off as to what the Botschens end up selling this for in 10 years’ time.

 ??  ?? Shoe pioneers: Susanne and Christoph Botschen, above. Below, l to r, Tabitha Simmons, Miu Miu and Bottega Veneta
Shoe pioneers: Susanne and Christoph Botschen, above. Below, l to r, Tabitha Simmons, Miu Miu and Bottega Veneta
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