r e t s b e W a i h p o SS o p h i a W e b s t e r rt o p e R d n a r B
Written by Sophie Glover Creative Direction by Natalie Gaskin
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ophia Webster has quickly gained recognition and credit for being an imaginative luxury shoe designer with many celebrities now being spotted wearing her name from Queen Beyonce to young actress Chloe Mortez. Working her way into the shoe business by starting as a Design Assistant to Nicholas Kirkwood she has now proved she can stand on her own two feet, taking the skills learnt from one of the best and putting her own flamboyant spin on footwear. Her shoes are instantly recognizable to those who know the brand, each shoe expressing a different personality that stands out through the lively feminine designs.
Webster’s shoes have strong visual identity to create these different ‘personalities’, each shoe being given an ‘It’ girl name to enhance this. Her shoes incorporate fun design elements while m a i n t a i n i n g sophistication, being a unique selling point for the brand and making her stand out from fellow competitors. For example her recent ‘Evangeline’ shoe includes metallic angel wings and even her simplest design of ‘Coco’ turns the heel into a flamingo. Each shoe gives a sense of investment and becomes a collectable piece that enhances the wardrobe of a confident, fashion loving and experimental consumer.
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Webster’s shoes have strong visual identity to create these different ‘personalities’, each shoe being given an ‘It’ girl name to enhance this.
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The tone of voice that radiates from the brand of Webster is a sassy personality; evidence of this attitude coming from the small selection of clutches the brand p r o d u c e s . The types of phrases that have been printed on the clutches have been ‘touch my clutch’, ‘dirty talk’, ‘say my name’ and ‘cinda f***ing rella’, all giving a sense of cheeky playfulness and enhance the brands DNA and target consumer of getting noticed without trying too hard and the female consumer who has fun with fashion and doesn’t take herself too seriously.
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The Sophia Webster girl is confident, independent, and strong-minded, but she likes to have fun and doesn’t take herself too seriously. The shoes are spirited for that girl who loves life. I like to bring out the little girl who likes to dress up in a playful, yet elegant way, whether she is going to brunch or to a black-tie affair. – Sophia Webster
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he target customer for the brand of Sophia Webster would be a female full of life, who has a great sense of fashion, being in full time work due to the price points of her shoes. Her lifestyle would include many events and evenings out where she would dress to impress and Webster shoes would be on their wish list to wear to get noticed. Maybe even in the creative fifield, picturing a female that works for a magazine, is a blogger or in PR and therefore is crazy about new designers and interested in keeping up with fashion. Fashion blogger Susie Bubble has been a fan of Webster since the beginning, stating on her blog “Everything about her aesthetic just makes me want to exclaim “Yay!” over and over again.” Being a fashion icon with a quirky style herself it’s no surprise she understands and loves what Webster has done with her designs.
Sophia Webster has also featured on fashion icon Olivia P a l e r m o ’ s website, describing Sophia’s shoes perfectly: “The word that describes her collection of party-ready shoes and handbags: F U N . The kind of fun that makes all your other shoes seems pale in comparison. The kind of shoes that make you ask yourself, “Where have you been all my life?”” It’s difficult to give an exact age for the Sophia W e b s t e r target customer because judging by the celebrities that wear her shoes, the age varies, looking at the age difference between singer Beyonce and actress Chloe Mortez show that her shoes are for any female that are daring enough with fashion and love the Webster aesthetic.
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The brands recent S/S 2015 collection took the public into a different Sophia World than her previous collections. Using presentations to showcases every new collection, this is an effective way for Sophia to express her influences and inspirations, along with creating a new ‘world’ every collection. A jungle rave, full of fierce attitude was created to express her SS15 shoes. Her loud and proud stilettos, boots and sandals where put amongst models dressed like urban warriors with gaffti and artwork as the backdrop, the Aztec, geometric and vibrant animal prints roaring from the designs. Her presentations always receive press coverage, being a more captivating way of showing off new collections than a plain showcase room, staying true to her playful nature and going as bold as her shoes for each presentation.
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he brand gains a lot of publicity through the use of celebrity involvement; the Sophia Webster Instagram page (which now has 197k followers and growing) and Facebook page (40k likes) are always updating the latest people to wear the brand as shown here in this ‘I should CoCo’ post, including fashion icons wearing the style such as J e n n i f e r Lawrence and Blake Lively. The list of all the c e l e b r i t i e s being a long one (see appendix), along with every one being classified as a ‘style icon’ and great ambassadors to be seen in her shoes. The Instagram page also has posts directly updated from Sophia herself, including behind the scenes snaps of look book shoots, shoe sketches and even an insight to Sophia’s life including her baby and wedding pictures, all giving a sense of the brand being personal to Sophia and giving loyal customers and fans an insight into the World of Sophia which includes both her personal and work life.
Instagram and Facebook being huge and important platforms to promote from in todays digital world show the brand is keeping up with how consumers are hungry for something instant and keeping up with her target market of the savvy social networkers.
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I was immediately drawn to the luxurious metallic colours and rich woven fabrics from the J.Crew FW collection, I peppered in my personality with signature stripes, splashes of bright colour, spots, beads, tassels and bows.
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nother big promotion for the brand is using is through collaborations. The frst being between her and J.Crew, now on their second collection together where Sophia has created shoes for J.Crew’s A/W13 collection; this has further helped her brand identity working with a big American retailer and gained more publicity by bringing out more limited edition styles only sold through J.Crew. For a somewhat new brand a second collaboration portrays the success the brand is having, along with the demand for wanting to work with her again, a positive sign for the future development of the brand. This collaboration also enabled her shoes to be slightly more accessible to the younger fashion conscious target market.
Poppy Anneka Penelope
Sophia Webster X J Crew
Nicole Pippa
The second collaboration was in 2013, which saw Sophia Webster working together with global make-up brand Revlon for their range of Colourstay Ultimate Suede Lipsticks. Being a lipstick wearer and lover herself this seemed like the perfect (and also slightly personal to Sophia) collaboration for her super girly brand, a good colored lip accessorizing well with her vibrant shoes. Using the different shades in the lipstick collection, a variety of shoes were created with kiss motifs in the Revlon shades. This collaboration enabled the brand to verge into the beauty industry again creating more noise and awareness for Webster World. The collection was around for a limited time only, this again attracting many girly girls who adore the idea of matching shoes and lippy and therefore had to get in quick.
Suade by Sophia Webster
LuLu Red Lips Loren Pout Kiki kisses Liza Get Lippy Mimi Kiss Me
Another upcoming c o l l a b o r a t i o n Webster has just done is with the new faux-fur label Shrimps. London designer Hannah Weiland teamed up with Sophia to create shoes to accompany her SS15 collection, shoes with faux fur straps to match and enhance her collection. These shoes will be available next year along with her S/S clothes. Two relatively new brands coming together generating a bigger platform for them both, gaining more press from the fashion world interested in new designers and collaborations, along with both of their consumers finding out about the other brand, hopefully leading to bigger awareness and sales.
Sophia Webster X Shrimps
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ophia Webster is sure to have captured the attention for the likes of J.Crew, Shrimps and Revlon to want to collaborate by the awards she has won. Winning the New Gen Award for her first three seasons shown by the British Fashion Council, 2012 Conde Nast Footwear Designer of the Year and the most recent award from the Mayor of London and British Fashion Councils Fashion Forward prize for AW14 and SS15, Webster is on fire. These awards being instantly heard about and respected in the fashion world and thoroughly deserved because of her unique and attention grabbing shoes, in addition to how quickly the brand has come along from leaving her Assistant position with Kirkwood.
Sophia Webster does not have her own UK store, briefly having her second pop up shore in Covent Garden for her A/W 2013 collection, which closed in February 2014. Images show the pop up store to have the same quirky, colorful and playful aesthetics, full of flowers, grass carpet and the Webster motif of flamingos. Perhaps pop ups working better for the brand at the moment in which she can create different environments for each collection and maybe a stay put store will come later, and when it does there’s no doubt it will be just as or even more imaginative than her pop up shops and c o l l e c t i o n presentations. This creative tactic of creating exciting environments for the press and public will be an element that will continually get the brand noticed and enhance her quirky characteristic. Fenwicks and Harrods stores
Covent garden pop up store
Her shoes are sold in the following UK stores including Selfridges, Harrods, Fenwick’s and Browns. After research into looking at what shop sold what products, Selfridges seem to have the biggest variety and stock of the more exotic designs, each store having styles that suited their target customer better, for example Selfridges had the Clementine multi-strap knee high sandal that the other two retailers didn’t have. This design being for the more e x p e r i m e n t a l consumer more suited to Selfridge’s slightly younger audience. In Harrods Shoe Heaven floor she was not amongst the other shoe brands but has her own shelving unit on the walkway to shoe h e a v e n .
This may be due to her brand not being as accomplished as some of the other brands however, a successful positioning in getting noticed and gaining more recognition as being an upcoming ultra fun shoe brand that differs from others. When it comes to online stock lists she is on all the websites which feature luxury shoe labels including the likes of Net-a-Porter, and Far Fetched, making sure to have different styles on each, giving exclusives to certain websites, however all styles being available for purchase on her own website.
The price bracket that Sophia’s shoes are placed within the shoe industry would be classifed as high luxury, with her shoes using expensive fabrics and materials, some even including real rabbit fur. Her shoes are usually priced between £300-£600 making them luxury however she has designed some slightly more affordable products like the Miami plain black flats priced at £195.00. These kinds of prices bring in a slightly younger audience in which a female student or recent graduate interested in fashion and the brand may save up for them and buy them as an investment. The most expensive product Webster produced is the Mila Knee-High heeled sandal at £1695 mark. This could be foreseen as a risk when Sophia Webster started out, yet we can see that her shoes are getting acknowledged in the fashion industry and being worn by celebrities, so clearly this risk successfully worked, her shoes fitting in well amongst luxury shoe brands and clearly being a market out there for her luxury ultra feminine and loveable kitsch designs.
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The most expensive product Webster produced is the Mila Knee-High heeled sandal at £1695 mark. This could be foreseen as a risk when Sophia Webster started out, yet we can see that her shoes are getting acknowledged in the fashion industry and being worn by celebrities, so clearly this risk successfully worked.
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MilaKnee-High heeled sandal at £1695
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Sophia Webster’s biggest competitor would be the successful and luxury shoe brand Charlotte Olympia, founded in 2008, already a 5 year head start above Sophia to get to the point with a known brand identity, loyal customers and become respected in the fashion industry, the gold spider’s web on the sole instantly recognizable to fashion and shoe lovers all over the world. Her Instagram figures show the brand to be more established than Webster, a big 303k followers. The brands feminine design philosophy and price points making her possibly number one competitor and similar to Sophia, perhaps Sophia looking up to this brand and hoping to get the same success as the Olympia brand. The website references how Olympia is inspired ‘by the bygone era of old Hollywood Glamour’, all designs being hand crafted in Italy to enrich the luxury brand. A significant difference between the two brands is Charlotte Olympia having a much bigger product collection than newer brand of Webster, these include::
Charlotte Olympia 1) ‘Runaway Bride’, shoes for the modern and fashionable bride who want her wedding shoes to be just as glamorous as the dress. 2) ‘Cosmic’ astrology footwear in which shoes designs for each star sign has been made. Each star sign having a distinctive color and motif, along with matching clutches for this collection, giving a sense of individualism for consumers who believe in astrology identity and connect with the idea of shoes reflecting their personality. 3) ‘Incy’, which is a children’s footwear collection, cleverly branded from taking her spiders web icon on the sole of her shoes and creating a collection that keeps her identity and expands the brand to the stylish mum consumer who are perhaps fans of the brand and will buy into wanting this luxury for their children too. 4) 9-5 work wear collection for consumers who want that little bit of indulgence to their work wardrobe. 5) Array of flat shoes, ‘Kitty & Co’ being popular shoes in which questions consumers of ‘what kitty are you’ as each kitty flat expresses a different personality.
All these different product collections enable the brand to appeal to different consumers and therefore expand and deepen its market position, Sophia having to compete with this more established brand. However clearly Sophia is on the right tracks to keeping up with fellow footwear and accessory designers, considering starting out in 2013 she is already on her way to creating an individual and renowned brand, especially with the upcoming product extension of the ‘mini’ line, seeing a opportunity personal after just having a little girl herself to create this baby shoe line. Also Sophia Webster is making sure her design characteristics differ to competitors especially Charlotte Olympia in which her visual identity is much more youthful, playful and has energetic color clashing, rather than being all about ‘glamour’
like the Olympia brand and instead her shoes are wildly fun, in a chic way, often drawing inspiration from fairytales, fantasies and even the 90s and skimming along the edge of kitsch without sacrificing elegance. Our group’s film needed to have the same playfulness and cheekiness that Sophia uses in her designs and collection presentations. Our concept of how a pair of Sophia Webster shoes takes the protagonist on a fun journey through the jungle and the outcome of quitting her job represents the confidence a pair of Webster shoes can give. The jungle scenes are full of life with a little naughtiness and humor that we think portrays the brand DNA effectively, being slightly exaggerated and loveable kitsch.
Pina Colada Sandal by Charlotte Olympia
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s me’ clut
Charlo
pia ‘Kis tte Olym
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r e t s b e W a i h p o S r e f t o s b e e r u W t u a i F h p o S f o e r u t u F Short Term
Long Term
• Celebrity face for the brand, both fashion blogger Susie Bubble and singer Gwen Stefani would work well with the brands ‘fun with fashion’ attitude.
• Flagship store in London, taking a step up from pop ups to a environment Sophia could really turn into a playful selling point all year round, full of Webster quirky and fun characteristics.
• Brand has not jumped on the Fashion Film bandwagon yet; this can be a relatively cheap marketing tool for new and young brands so could work well with Sophia.
• Sophia created a pair of wedding shoes for singer Jessie Ware, with motif ‘Wifey for Lifey’, this could be a collection the brand could consider expanding, maybe more wives to be dreaming of a pair of Sophia Webster shoes for her wedding day
• Pop up store in New York, another fashion capital for the brand to tackle, already having a shop in Paris and popping up in London this seems like the ideal place to try next, perhaps launching the NY pop up shop during their fashion week.
• Sophia created shoes to go along with Shrimps SS15 collection; this could be a collection with a future, perhaps working together again. In addition she could do the same thing for other new and upcoming designers.
• Expand on accessories range; a bigger variety of styles and matching shoe/ bag combinations could happen in future collections.
• ‘Mini’ line is set to launch S/S15 and will be the next step for the brand. This collection will undoubtedly be continued for future collections if sales are successful.
• Collaboration with British retailer like the brand does with J.Crew, Topshop would work well with her aesthetic and price points would not be too much of an issue as Topshop often do more luxury ranges like the Kate Moss collection and Topshop Unique from London Fashion Week so it has the potential to work.
• More social media use, perhaps special events on Instagram, which is the brand biggest promoting platform. Special one day 20% off promo code and more competitions and giveaways could work well for more attention and sales. • Upcoming Sophia Webster had designed for Victoria Secret’s show again, featuring her shoes will help gain more awareness as it’s known that the most creative shoe designers featured on the show, her mentor Nicolas Kirkwood often featuring. • Like the brand has done with Anya Hindmarch’s last show, some of her shoes featured on the catwalk for the looks to go with her bags. A partnership between these two accessories brands could work well for shows to come.
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Everything about her aesthetic just makes me want to exclaim “Yay!” over and over again. Susie Bubble
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Celebrities Wearing Webster - Jlo - Cheryl Cole - Chloe Mortez - Beyonce - Rita Ora - Rihanna - Anna Dello Russo - Kourtney Kardashian - Kylie - Nicole Scherzinger - Nina Dobrev - Sarah Jessica Parker - Solange - Susie Bubble - Fern Cotton
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I love them!!!! Fern Cotton
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The word that describes her collection of party-ready shoes and handbags: F U N . The kind of fun that makes all your other shoes seems pale in comparison. The kind of shoes that make you ask yourself, “Where have you been all my life?”
Olivia Palermo
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• Female • 25-30 • Full time job in creative field (Press Assistant, Stylist, blogger, maybe worked her way up to be a Creative Director or Senior Fashion Journalist etc....) • 20-30k income • City girl, lives in and knows her way around London •Frequent traveller,for both work and personal, trips to fashion weeks, visits New York often • Social network savvy • Enjoys photography and updates regularly on Instagram • Goes out to many events, whether it’s a work/ fashion event or for a city night out with drinks for friends
• Enjoys shopping for wardrobe enhancers, quality and uniqueness being important to her • Conscious about her appearance, takes pride in how she looks
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• Buys from the brand because attention grabbing shoes complete her outft
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