Barcelona is fashion, a web portal created in 2005 by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce as a meeting point for companies and professionals in the fashion sector, gave us an interview in which we talked about our beginnings, our current situation and reality, and about our future projects. You can read it below or on their website.
“Our boots have magic”
The first Layer Boots shoes sold out within an hour. They were five pairs of hand-decorated boots, which were inspired by the boho style and were born from the passion of two entrepreneurs: Malen Feliz and Martina Gentile. Layer Boots has not stopped growing year after year, since its birth in 2013. “The business advisor and the accountant assure us that growth like ours is surprising,” explains an excited Martina Gentile. She is Italian and has been in Barcelona for ten years, the same as her partner. They met working in an advertising agency in the Catalan capital, as a web developer and art director, respectively. They did not imagine that they would become entrepreneurs and that their main concern – the best of concerns – would currently be “growing the team.” An expansion that should allow them to address their international expansion process, growth in points of sale and, above all, “maintain the artisanal style” that characterizes the brand. “Our creation process can be maintained even if the company grows. Currently, we rely on an external supplier to handle the decoration. And this has allowed us to grow a lot in the last year. We have gone from investing an hour in decoration to twenty minutes. We do not want to lose the handmade process, because it is precisely this that allows us to make boots different from those that leave the factory,” says Gentile. For his part, Malen Feliz specifies: “Now we don't sew here. We outsource this process, but we always do the final assembly of the decoration in the studio. “We travel a lot and bring pieces of clothing, coins or metals from any country we visit to decorate shoes.” They have recently moved to a new studio in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona. The space is designed for a much larger team to work than the current one. “We are four people and if we want to grow in sales and open up to new markets, we also have to grow in personnel,” say the two founding partners, emphasizing that they are in no rush to do so and that they want to take it step by step.
Sell reality
Since the sale of the first Layer Boots through the North American market place, Etsy, the company has not stopped taking steps forward. An initial investment of three thousand euros and many hours of work – “this year there are no summer holidays” they emphasize – has allowed them to reach fifty multi-brand points of sale around the world. Among the most important markets are the US and Australia. In total Layer Boots are sold in ten stores around the world. “We sold abroad before here,” they remember. Its digital promotion strategy - based not only on Etsy, but also on its profiles on Instagram and other social networks - has been key to entering markets that are so demanding for Catalan fashion companies, such as the North American market. When Feliz and Gentile talk about the action of communication on the Internet, they often repeat two words: “reality and luck.” Thanks to their experience within the advertising sector, they know well the keys to promoting a brand on online social platforms and remember that people like “what is real.” “We don't rely too much on bloggers, influencers or Instagrammers. “We believe that this world is a little unreal,” says Malen Feliz, convinced. Despite this, they have a community of thirty-two thousand people on Instagram, a considerable number considering the size of the company. They know that a good part of them are “Layers Boots buyers”. Thanks to this group of followers, they project the image of reality about which they talk so much. “If someone posts a photo with our boots on their profile it is because they have bought them, they like them and they want to show them. We don't pay for them to do it,” explains Gentile.
Luck
As far as luck is concerned, both companies are aware that it has been an essential ingredient in projecting the firm to the world. “Almost every day we have relationships with famous people, whether they are models, actresses or television characters who ask us for our boots because they like them. “This has been great luck!” exclaims Gentile. Names such as actresses Amaia Salamanca, Elsa Pataky or celebrities and models such as Goya Toledo or Sara Carbonero have publicly worn one of the Layer Boots models. Without a doubt, one of the most precious images for the founders of this brand is that of the Brazilian actress and model, Alessandra Ambrosio, followed by a group of photographers at the US music and art festival, Coachella, with one of her Models. “Moments like those are small dreams that, with a lot of luck, we are achieving,” exclaims Malen Feliz. Her partner adds: “Without doing paid campaigns we can reach very different audiences. From actresses and famous people with high purchasing power, to a consumer who follows trends very closely and who wants the Layer Boots model that she has seen someone well-known wearing on television.”
But not everything is chance in the success story of Layer Boots. To understand her, it is necessary to keep in mind that her partners launched a product without competition on the market in 2013. “Martina really likes country music,” says Feliz, “and one day, we decorated some boots for her to dance with. They attracted a lot of attention from their friends and this encouraged us to do the first test with five more pairs of shoes and selling them online in a market where the boho style was on the rise as a fashion trend, the US.” That first success was a clear warning for the two businesswomen: “There was no product like ours on the market.” And we went one step further, creating high-top sandals. “We got a lot of sales and we had to think seriously about whether or not to do a business project. In two hours, we sold thirty pairs of sandals. A blogger published an image with them and sales skyrocketed even more,” says Feliç, remembering the summer of 2013. From then on, they expanded the collection, launched the corporate website and the online store, and in 2014, the physical store. In 2017, they will open the firm's second establishment. The space has yet to be decided, but the Balearic Islands and Madrid are the great candidates.
Bohemian
The Layer Boots style called boho is in the brand's DNA. They do not believe that it is a trend and they are not afraid that it will go out of style. “It is a lifestyle, a way of living comfortably. I very much doubt that it will end as a trend of the moment. With this style you feel good, wearing little and it is in line with a way of being. We believe there will always be boho girls. Our muses are the actress Sienna Miller or the model Kate Moss. They have always dressed like this and they breathe boho everywhere!” Martina assures with conviction, remembering that in Spain this style has just arrived and still has a long way to go. Despite this, with the new winter collection that they have presented at the international Momad fair in Madrid, they want to reach a wider audience. “Without losing our style. We will always, always, always be boho. But we also want to reach a girl who is looking for a simpler, country style.”
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