Women’s Comfort

WOMEN’S COMFORT: TAOS

Merchant Mindset

AFTER 40-PLUS years of honing his craft, Glen Barad, president of Taos Footwear, has a pretty firm grasp of what categories will be meaningful for the comfort brand and its retail partners. And that currently spans sandals, canvas sneakers, classic boots, leather cup soles and wool—the five categories that fueled the brand’s success the past few years. Sales in 2021 were up 10 percent over 2019, which Barad finds “pretty incredible,” since a lot of fall inventory never arrived due to Covid-induced factory closures.

The success stems from picking the right categories, building them out and creating a strong Taos trust factor with retailers and consumers. “We try

to identify trends that are going to have long legs,” Barad explains. “I prefer not to chase things that might be dust in the wind or a flash in the pan. We focus on ones that we expect will be around for a long time, but we come in at the front end when people are just starting to embrace it.” An example of getting an early jump was Taos’ decision, 17 years ago, to focus on footbeds, which the then new brand uniquely introduced across a range of silhouettes. “Look at the market now: everybody has a footbed story, whereas back then it might have been one or two brands,” he says. “We’ve put footbeds into different categories, and it’s been working very well. I think we’ve a big hand in changing the overall look of the industry.”

Wool styles are another success story. While Taos has been offering such styles for 15 years, it’s been over the past three years that it has maximized the trend. “We’ve become more aggressive, and it’s paying dividends for us,” Barad says, noting the category had been regional until Allbirds helped introduce the material to a broader audience. It’s just that Taos is hitting on a much broader range of wool styles than sneakers. “The more traditional, classic wool clog category is doing very well, and we source from Europe where they’ve been the experts forever,” he says. “And then we’ve introduced indoor/outdoor wool casual styles that appeal to a much broader audience across the country. We’ve become the go-to brand for wool casuals in our distribution channel, and wool overall has become another very successful category for us.”

Of course, you have to see the trend in order to seize upon it. And that’s credit to Barad’s good eye. “It’s 40 years of going to school,” he says. “And while I don’t get up at 4 a.m. on Sundays to go to swap meets, or shop the malls until they close after a full day of work, those decades of studying the industry gives me a feel for the right trends.” The exec adds, “I think we happen to be very good merchants, whereas it’s often a case other companies throw a bunch of things against the wall and hope to see what sticks. Our track record on hitting on the right trends and categories speaks for itself.”

Another key ingredient contributing to Taos’ success amid the pandemic has had nothing to do with shoes, really. But it might be just as important, according to Barad. Namely: Taos cares about the well-being of its retail partners, and that’s been reflected in its open and honest lines of communication throughout the crisis. “Our team communicated the good, the bad and the ugly with all of our customers,” he says. “We tried to help them where we could. We let them know what we could and couldn’t do. And I think they really appreciate somebody being upfront with them, versus don’t pick up the phone, don’t say anything and we’ll communicate after the fact.”

Above all, Barad says Taos’ business is conducted with care. “We genuinely want to help our retailers succeed,” he says. And while Barad believes this philosophy is rare in an increasingly DTC focused landscape, he’s not changing tactics any time soon. “Even though it has probably held our numbers back on a macro scale, I think it’s the reason we’re so important to the better independent and specialty chains we work with,” he says, believing that those ties will pay greater dividends in 2022 and beyond. “It feels like we’ve become true partners while overcoming the industry challenges together. If we can recapture the business we lost in 2020 and manage the supply chain issues, we should have a very healthy 2022.”

Barad stresses that none of Taos’ recent or future success is possible without its dedicated team of employees. Namely: Bill Langrell, Sylvia Jensen, Deepak Alag, Teresa Johnson, Karolyn Navarro, Don Fulton, Jennifer Kuo, Erica Heck, Ondrea Kurtillo, Rosie Cetina, John Zelayandia, Dianne Stevens, Mike Kasterko, Rob Capodici and Janet Sanchez. “These people are setting a tremendous example for the staff who’ve recently joined our company,” he says. Yet Barad grades them a B+ in 2021. “They did extremely well, but I’d never give an A, no matter how well they did,” he says. “There’s always room to improve. We can never be satisfied; we’re always figuring out how we can be better.” —G.D.

The Woolderness clog, a best-seller in 2021.

Glen Barad, president, Taos