Text size:

Fitting comfort to fashionable footwear

By Farnoosh Torabi | Special to amNewYork

February 5, 2007

Farylrobin Footwear for women. (Photo by Kristy May / February 4, 2007)

It's no secret that women have a footwear fetish. The reasons are simple, according to New York shoe maven Faryl Robin Morse.

"You never look fat in a pair of shoes," said Morse, founder of Farylrobin Footwear for women.

"It doesn't matter how many hamburgers you ate the night before. It's always a happy purchase," she said. "Plus, shoes make the outfit."

But shoes don't always fit a budget or provide the level of comfort and attractiveness -- at least, not all at once. And that is where Morse is making a name. In the market for fashion-forward, relaxing, affordable and versatile female shoes, Morse believes she is the sole provider.

"Design and price do not have to be mutually exclusive," said the 40-year-old mother of two.

Farylrobin's leather comes from Italy, and most of the shoes have padded rubber soles. They're fit for a boardroom meeting and a date after work. Prices range from about $135 to $179 per pair.

Since Farylrobin's launch five years ago, sales have doubled annually. The business had a stock of 10,000 pairs of shoes in its first year. Now that number has soared to 150,000. And the brand is sold at retailers like Zappos.com, Amazon.com and Nordstrom.com, as well as boutiques and department stores nationwide.

"We're coming off of our best retailing season to date," said Morse, citing Farylrobin's tall, flat leather boot, which oversold by more than 1,000 pairs. Faryl Robin Morse began climbing the ranks of the footwear industry at 16, working as a salesperson for Kenneth Cole after graduating high school in Manhattan.

She later graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology with her sights set on shoes. She held positions as a shoe buyer, marketing executive, merchandiser and developer. Finally in 2001, Morse put her creativity to the ultimate test, launching her shoe-design company.

A cast of 13 opinionated women runs the SoHo-based business. It is a purposeful strategy, Morse said.

Before any Farylrobin shoe hits the stores, the women must agree they would, indeed, wear the shoes themselves to work and play.

"We ask, 'Would you pick this up [in a store]?'" Morse said. "Then we turn it over and look at the price. Do we feel insulted?"

Amid the rapid success, Farylrobin is slow to partner with too many vendors or drastically raise production levels.

"We've held ourselves back. There's no harder lesson to learn than to have shoes in inventory that don't sell," Morse said. "We'd rather be a big fish in a small pond."

Farnoosh Torabi is a video correspondent for thestreet.com. Reach her at amSmallBusiness@gmail.com.