3. Although you have had great success since launching quality but was still affordable. £165 is a lot of money for
the brand, I can imagine you must have faced some a lot of people, but it is still affordable. It means that the
challenges along the way. What did you find most working class person can go to work, put a little away
challenging and how did you overcome it? and at the end of the month, go and treat themselves to
a quality product. I considered making the shoes cheaper
I remember the first time when Mallet was launched online. to buy, but the only way in achieving that was to lower the
We started off with about 50 or 100 pairs ready to sell. quality of the shoes, which I wasn’t prepared to do.
In truth, I believed that we were going to sell out on my
website in one day and actually, we didn’t, it was very slow. 4. As well as the UK market, MALLET footwear has built
Frustratingly, I could see I had around 200,000 visitors on up a large presence in the city of Amsterdam. What
my website, but we weren’t selling anything. The website made you want to push the product in this area and how
products did end up selling out, but I didn’t rush to restock does it compare to the UK market?
it. I wanted to build up the ‘hype’ again and it actually led to
people like will-i-am asking when the website was going to Amsterdam has turned into a hugely successful market for
be restocked. me. I went there in January last year with nothing and now
we are stocked in around 50 stores throughout Holland.
The main obstacle I had was changing people's mindset on Although Holland is not a big place, the fashion industry is
why they should buy my £165 shoes over another brand, huge and it’s a big place for sneakers. There’s also a lot of
such as Nike. In all honesty, my shoes should be in the competitive brands surfacing over there at the moment. I
£300-£350 market and I constantly had people telling me love the country and everything they’ve got going on over
“Why margin your product to a figure that is not as high as there.
it should be?” But, I created these shoes for people like you
and me, normal, ordinary people.
I remember people telling me if you get into any stores
over in Holland, you are really going to struggle. As soon as
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Growing up I was one of these kids that always struggled someone tells me I can’t do something, I’m over there on
for nice things. I wanted to make a product that was great the next flight and making it happen!
The Art of Luxury
Issue 32 2018