Sole Proprietor Has Affordable Style

On any given day, a shopper in Bloomingdale’s shoe department will see tables dedicated to national retailers such as Juicy Couture and Michael Kors. In the midst of all these high-end brands is a table piled high with stylish shoes by Farylrobin Footwear, a New York-based designer that has become a go-to brand for the professional set.“The shoes are reasonably priced but also fashion forward and comfortable,” an administrative assistant at the SAC Capital hedge fund, Kathy McFarland, said recently while snatching up two pairs at a department store. Inc. magazine last month published its list of the 5,000 fastest growing private American companies, and Farylrobin ranked at 1,609. Despite a celebrity following — talk show host Rachael Ray wore a pair of Farylrobin boots for the making of her wax likeness at Madame Tussaud’s this spring — the shoes are relatively affordable at $150 to $200 a pair. In fact, because of the $179 price tag, Ms. McFarland bought the same high heel style in two different colors.“When I started, there were no shoes for my generation of women who couldn’t afford the designer shoes that cost $400 a pair, but didn’t want to buy a pair of fashion knockoffs for $89, either,” the shoes’ designer, Faryl Robin Morse, said. “There were no designer products available at a reasonable price point, and I wanted to fill that hole.”Ms. Morse has done just that. Her shoes, which feature chunky heels for comfort and come in offbeat colors such as cherry red and olive green, are designer quality without the price tag. To keep costs down, leather and other materials for the shoes come from Italy, while manufacturing is done in China.The company, started in 2002 entirely with bank loans, does not advertise. Ms. Morse, however, is not lacking for attention. She makes regular appearances at department stores and at fashion colleges. She has been on the “Montel” show, and in addition to Ms. Ray, Halle Berry and Lindsay Lohan are fans. The company has been growing rapidly, and expects gross sales to reach as much as $6 million this year from $3.8 million in 2006.Ms. Morse, a native New Yorker who lives in Gramercy Park with her husband, an asset manager at BlackRock, and two toddlers, said the company has no direct competitors.The shoes, with their bright colors, thick heels, and often rubber soles, have a similar aesthetic to the Camper brand, another fashion forward company that emphasizes comfort. Still, while the two shoe brands appear similar, Farylrobin is at a decidedly lower price point.“The smaller the company, the more creative you are,” Ms. Morse said. “There are 12 women in the office, ages 22 to 40-plus, and we all make different salaries. Every shoe that goes into the line, we ask each other, ‘If you walk into a store, would you be visually attracted to it?'”The petite, blond-haired CEO, who gave an interview in her showroom last week decked out in a turquoise-and-white sundress and Farylrobin gladiator sandals, first became enamored with fashion as a teenager. While in high school in Manhattan, she bought a pair of parachute pants — in high style at the time thanks to bands such as Wham! — for $110. Her mother balked at the splurge and made Ms. Morse return the pants, buy them again on a credit card, and pay her mother back over time. To do that, Ms. Morse got a job at a nearby Kenneth Cole location. Now the designer has come full circle — her SoHo showroom is located directly above another Kenneth Cole store on Broadway.“We are the little company that could,” Ms. Morse said.While Farylrobin shoes are sold in more than 200 boutiques and department stores across the country, there are no immediate plans for a retail store.“It is a $17 billion market, and we have such a small piece of it. I think it is important to fine-tune what we are doing, stake out a claim in the wholesale business, and then do retail.”

Sole Proprietor Has Affordable Style

Sole Proprietor Has Affordable Style

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