All New business models & startups articles – Page 2

  • Socque
    Article

    Emerging designer: Socque rocks the classics

    2024-08-23T16:01:00Z

    The Covid-19 pandemic that broke out towards the end of the first quarter of 2020 in Europe, and the subsequent related lockdowns, prompted many to make major life changes. Laure Chareton’s and Camille Cour’s response consisted of launching a high-end women’s footwear brand. After a decade of helping others run ...

  • JustinShop
    Article

    How an Italian online platform aims to give more visibility to local fashion stores

    2024-07-26T08:45:00Z

    JustinShop is an Italian startup that created an app allowing users to book fashion items, such as a piece of apparel or a pair of shoes, with the option to receive them at home by courier or pick them up at a nearby shop. This may not seem new for ...

  • News briefs

    Belledonne raises €1m in funding

    2024-07-22T07:08:00Z

    Belledonne Paris raised €1 million from external investors to finance its expansion. Since its launch in 2018 thanks to a crowdfunding effort via the Paris and Montreal-based platform Ulule, Belledonne has been self-financed. The brand has also benefited from the support of Au delà du cuir (ADC), the leading French ...

  • Screenshot 2024-05-07 at 10.57.28
    Article

    How Belledonne is achieving sneaker success by revisiting retro styles

    2024-06-10T14:43:00Z

    With a claim as bold as “We do sneakers. We do them well”, Antonin Chabanne and Mikael Leo, who established Belledonne Paris in 2018, were setting their sights high. Since their company name derives from the Belledonne range of mountains in the Dauphiné Alps of southeast France near Grenoble ...

  • News briefs

    A/Impact invests in the Italian sustainable sneaker brand Id.Eight

    2024-03-25T08:29:00Z

    A/Impact, a venture capital firm, backed by Avanzi - Sostenibilità per Azioni and the asset manager Etica SGR, investing in social and environmentally responsible projects, has decided to invest €350,000 in Id.Eight, a Florence-based sneaker brand that uses waste materials. The funds will help support the brand in its internationalization ...

  • fessura image
    Article

    Fessura plans to raise €2.1 million in a crowdfunding

    2024-01-02T09:26:00Z

    Fessura, a sneaker company based in Italy’s Marche region, is proceeding with a crowdfunding due to close on Jan.17 on the Mamacrowd platform. The maximum size of the transaction was increased to €2.1 million from €1.6 million “to give the opportunity to the many investors who have expressed interest in ...

  • Caplait 2
    Article

    Emerging designer: The Peshawari chappal: Çaplait!

    2023-12-18T09:43:00Z

    A cultural appropriation clash at the highest levels of the international fashion world led — apart from a retraction and relaunch of the offending item — to a fresh career direction for a British-born Pakistani entrepreneur, the creation of a new niche industry preserving traditional local skills in his parents’ ...

  • Veldskoen_Shoes_Safari
    Article

    Veldskoen Shoes diversifies into the travel industry

    2023-11-13T09:52:00Z

    Veldskoen Shoes, a South African footwear brand, is expanding into the travel industry through a partnership in the U.S. with Rhino Africa Co, a safari company. The partners have launched Veldskoen Travel, a digital travel service “designed to provide unforgettable travel experiences to Africa,” it said in a statement. “Veldskoen’s ...

  • Micam
    Article

    Micam continues to showcase 12 emerging footwear designers

    2023-09-06T15:09:00Z

    Scheduled to run from Sept. 17 to 20 at the Fieramilano Rho exhibition center at the outskirts of Milan, the 96th edition of the Micam footwear fair will, as always, showcase twelve up-and-coming footwear designers. Selected by a panel of some of the leading names in the Italian fashion and ...

  • daniel-sessler-g3O3xWspoN4-unsplash
    Article

    How Portugal is planning to spend €120m to boost its footwear industry

    2023-07-10T06:34:00Z

    Portuguese footwear producers are working on two projects to modernize the country’s industry with critical financing provided by Portugal’s recovery plan. The Agile, Intelligent, Sustainable and Technological Factory (FAIST) and the BioShoes4All projects rely on funds from Portugal’s €16 billion Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), part of the European Union’s ...

  • Aholas logo
    Article

    C-Suite interview: On-demand production is key to Alohas’ success

    2023-06-10T12:57:00Z

    Alohas’ revenues surged from €100,000 in 2015 to over €27 million in 2022, an extraordinary growth rate that has transformed in a few years a Catalan startup producing summer shoes into an international brand. The company made the quantum leap during the Covid-19 pandemic, when most of the footwear industry ...

  • logo-works
    Article

    ​How a new collection has prompted Safety Jogger to review its supply chain

    2023-02-17T08:04:00Z

    Safety Jogger, the leading brand of the Belgian footwear and apparel company Cortina, launched in November 2022 a workwear collection as part of its brand extension policy and the initiative has led the company to reconsider its sourcing policy and reduce its reliance on China. At Expoprotection, an international exhibition ...

  • WhatsApp Image 2023-01-15 at 11.03.04
    Article

    iHeel presents an extendable heel for women’s shoes

    2023-02-09T12:23:00Z

    iHeel, an Italian company proposing an extendable heel for women’s shoes, is obtaining a lot of interest from end users, resellers, distributors and e-commerce companies, according to Veronica Crisafulli, the company’s co-founder along with Alessandro Filosa. The pair has been working for three years on the heel’s prototypes and invested ...

  • Micam
    Article

    Emerging designers: An overview of innovative footwear design at Micam

    2023-02-06T08:36:00Z

    In the run-up to the 95th edition of the Micam footwear show in Milan, here is a brief overview of the twelve emerging designers who will be doing their second go-round on their dedicated stand in the new MicamX area between Feb. 19 and Feb 22. Now in its fourth ...

  • News briefs

    Shloop to open a production site in Mississippi

    2023-01-23T15:42:00Z

    Shloop, a startup footwear manufacturer, is opening a manufacturing facility in Meridian, in the U.S. state of Mississipi. The $9 million investment is due to create 56 jobs. The footwear factory is located in a 32,000 square foot building dating back to the 1930s and started as a bakery. The ...

  • News briefs

    ​Copenhagen, Liebeskind founders to launch a footwear brand

    2023-01-11T09:41:00Z

    The founders of Liebeskind Berlin and Copenhagen Studios, the brothers Johannes and Julian Rellecke, are about to launch a new footwear label, according to the German trade magazine TextilWirtschaft. After Copenhagen Studios - which became in 2021 part of the s.Oliver Group and is currently expanding into the French ...

  • logo 1
    Article

    Emerging designer: Pineapples, grape-skins an apples step out in style in Id.Eight’s sneakers

    2023-01-03T09:05:00Z

    Ideas come easy at Id.Eight. Which is to be expected when its two creators come from such a solid background in footwear design (him), and fashion marketing (her). He is Dong Seon Lee, from Seoul, South Korea, who built on his Fashion Design degree from KMU (Kookmin University) in 2005, ...

  • random-institute-0PsefHRQr8g-unsplash
    Article

    Russian shoe retailers diversify their offer to replace Western brands

    2023-01-03T09:03:00Z

    Following a mass exodus of Western brands from Russia, caused by the country’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, several shoe retailers plan to add apparel and accessories to their product range to fill a gap in the market, according to the Russian think tank NF Group. Rendez-Vous, Ralf ...

  • Scylia Chevaux logo
    Article

    Emerging designer: Scylia Chevaux’s debut collection appeals to Japanese department stores

    2022-11-03T16:42:00Z

    Held back, as was much else, by the Covid pandemic, and originally intended to be launched at least a year earlier, Scylia Chevaux’s 10.2” range made its debut of men’s and women shoes, boots, and accessories, at the September 2022 edition of the Micam footwear show in ...

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