Santoni Chairman Giuseppe Santoni Talks Women’s Expansion, Global Store Growth

After several years of post-pandemic growth, Santoni is showing no signs of slowing down.

In fact, the 48-year-old family-run Italian footwear company seems to be just getting started as Santoni doubles down on its plans to expand categories and add new stores in 2024.

For Giuseppe Santoni, who stepped back as CEO and took on the role of chairman and executive president of Santoni earlier this year, expanding the company’s women’s business is top of mind.

“We’ve seen impressive growth in our ladies’ business over the past couple of years,” Mr. Santoni told FN in an exclusive interview while in New York last month. “Right now, it’s all about educating consumers that we, in fact, have women’s shoes as Santoni is traditionally seen as a men’s brand.”

Santoni said that as of today, women’s represents 30 percent of total business, while men’s takes the remaining 70 percent. This is up from just two years ago, when women’s accounted for only 15 percent of total sales.

“Our women’s collection is very special and sophisticated even for daily use, as we take into consideration the elements that a women appreciates – design, color, materials—while also making her feel sensual and desired while wearing our products,” the executive said

Top styles for women are silhouettes with a 4 cm to 6 cm heel aimed for daily use like its slingback pumps, Santoni noted. Flats for women are also performing well.

“We’d love to get to a point where women’s overtakes our men’s division,” Santoni added. “There’s a bigger market there because men typically only buy three to four pairs of shoes a year, while women will buy six to eight pairs.”

Santoni’s women’s expansion doesn’t end with shoes. Indeed, the company celebrated the launch of its latest handbag in New York last month. Called The Pluto collection, the new launch is seen as a key development for the label’s women’s leather goods line. “This new bag incorporates our signature double buckle design, but in a more feminine way,” Santoni said. “We’re very happy with the reception we’ve received so far on this new addition.”

In addition to its women’s growth ambitions, Santoni is also looking to expand its store network all over the world. “We have been established in the U.S. for many years now, but we want to focus on enlarging our distribution across the country in both online and in-store business,” Santoni maintained.

In the U.S., where Santoni currently has four retail stores, Mr. Santoni noted that the company is looking to open more doors across the States in key regions of opportunity. These include Los Angeles, which Santoni said is important to support the brand’s growing celebrity clientele, as well as Las Vegas due to its tourism and consumer spending power. “We are also looking into opening somewhere in Texas as luxury brands continue to prosper in the state,” he noted.

As for the rest of the world, Santoni has set his sights on a number of regions. “We’re very keen on the Middle East,” Santoni said. “We have opened stores in Dubai, Doha and Kuwait City. We also have a new shop coming to Paris and a few stores slated to open in eastern Europe.”

Turning to Asia, the executive went on to note that the brand has reorganized its Japanese business through a new distribution partner – Mitsui, and is working on a new project for Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. India is also on the store opening list, with a second store slated to open in Mumbai.

“China remains our biggest challenge,” Santoni admitted. “We only have two shops there, and we are looking for a solid partner to develop our business in the country.”  So far, the Italian brand has managed to launch on China’s Tmall and WeChat platforms and runs a store at the duty-free shopping island Hainan and another one in Hong Kong’s K11 mall.

“We see that what they appreciate the most is brands that have big logos, which is not us. But I also see that consumers are evolving a lot. They’re getting more sophisticated and they are looking at the product from the quality point of view. This is very good news for us,” noted Santoni. “For most luxury brands, China grows between 50 and 60 percent, and for us right now China is just 2 percent [of our business]. So we can easily double our turnover just entering the Chinese market.”

These developments come after Mr. Santoni took a step back from the CEO position in June, a position he had held since 1990. This led to fashion veteran Eraldo Poletto being tapped for the top job, marking the first time in company history that a non-family member held the role.

As for how Poletto is doing so far, Santoni is pleased. “Right now, he is working on creating a new structure for the company,” he said. “We are going to consolidate some of our operations and reorganize so that we can prepare the machine for future developments.”

Santoni said this reorganization was needed following several years of growth after the pandemic. “We’ve grown 40 percent since 2019,” Santoni noted. “Last year, we grew 20 percent over the year before, and we are slated to grow another 15 percent to 20 percent in 2023.”

He added that in 2019, the company recorded $82 million in sales. Fast forward to last year, and yearly sales jumped up to $98 million. “That’s a big step up,” Santoni added. “So, we are very happy. And because we believe in the products that we are selling and what we have to offer, our future is bright.”