APICCAPS – Europe’s sexiest industry

Portuguese footwear is the talk of the town and found in the pages of fashion magazines and on the feet of women like Michele Obama, the Queen of Spain, Paris Hilton, Penélope Cruz and Cameron Diaz. Only the Italians can outdo Portuguese shoes, however, after winning a lengthy battle against a death many times foretold, we can safely say that there’s no challenge that this footwear cluster cannot overcome.

"With the Gulf War [1990-1991] there was a huge drop in exports. They said that Portuguese footwear wouldn’t last long, but this never happened, primarily because manufacturers’ resilience and persistence”, says Luís Onofre, president of the Portuguese Footwear, Components, Leather Goods Manufacturers’ Association (APICCAPS), by way of an introduction to the story of a battle that lasted for over 25 years, both at home and abroad. In the late 1990s, footwear manufacturers, a business class made up of gritty people, had to overcome the domestic prejudice which said that footwear was an industry without a future, doomed in the face of European modernisation. Portugal, a country synonymous with low-cost mass production, with industry based on old factories, poor working conditions and cheap labour, also had to deal with competition from Asian markets and Eastern Europe, where prices were sometimes even lower.

"From 2000, there was major growth for Portuguese brands, mainly due to internationalisation. There was already that sense that we had to choose other markets. At the same time, we changed the product, the marketing philosophy, we became more professional about customer delivery and response.”

Portugal now has cutting-edge companies creating brands and trends that garner clients from Paris to Hong Kong, New York to New Zealand, with exports totalling 1.95 billion euros in 2016. Foreign sales account for 95% of total production, which equals 82 million pairs of shoes a year and an annual turnover of 2.1 billion euros. The sector isn’t only well-known for well-oiled production, gaining a reputation for fashion and design, which has added considerable value: the average export price increased from €18 in 2006 to almost €23 in 2012, the latest data available.

The know-how that Portuguese business people acquired during the years they worked for major international companies was important to this process of global affirmation, explains Luís Onofre. For example, his family’s factory, which retains the name of the designer’s grandmother, Conceição Rosa Pereira, made classic shoes and produced collections for Kenzo and Cacharel. When he took over the family business, almost immediately, Luís started working on his own brand. He designed his first shoes in 1993, launching his first collection in 1999. 

Today, his turnover is 12 million euros, selling 92% of production to external markets, including Russia, Dubai, Nigeria and Mongolia.

Although Portuguese factories continue to produce for major international luxury brands – Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy and Kenzo, to name a few –, Luís Onofre believes that manufacturers should "stop being workers for the luxury industry and start investing in our brands, in the Portuguese brand that is made from design to production”. This way, the sector would benefit from the boost the Made In brand would get, particularly if this identified products made entirely in the country, "which doesn’t happen in some markets, like Spain and Italy, where a significant slice of footwear sold is produced in countries outside the European Union”. "The international consumer already realises that Portugal is a symbol of quality and that’s a good basis to create truly international brands, super brands.” Actually, this is one of Onofre’s main goals as president of APICCAPS. Nowadays, Portugal sells shoes to 152 countries on five continents, and much of this business is own-brand.

Fly London, a brand owned by Kyaia, the largest Portuguese footwear group, was a pioneer in paving the way forward, becoming an international brand. The group turnover is around 65 million euros, with over 50% of this coming from Fly London, which, like the sector in general, exports 95% of production. What started out as the exception, became the rule, says Onofre: "There’s a third generation of footwear producers with a new philosophy that is increasingly geared towards exports, lots of new brands eager to do something different”. These brands were created to conquer the world but are proud to be Portuguese.

Undandy was set up in April 2015 to sell personalised shoes to the world. With 99% of sales in markets like the USA, Germany, Canada and Australia, in 2015 the company had a turnover of around 70 thousand euros, last year the figure was 2 million and this year the forecast is 6 million euros. "It’s very important that our shoes are made in Portugal. Portuguese footwear is some of the best in the world”, says Rafic Daud, founder of Undandy, whose business model is e-commerce. "Using our online business, we can offer a good price for personalised, artisanal shoes because we have a global showcase and can deliver anywhere in the world”.

Ten years ago, the sector brazenly described itself as the "The sexiest industry in Europe”, signing up to the slogan, "Designed by future”. The Portuguese Shoes logo and a few slogans formed the basis of bold advertising campaigns that aimed to put Portuguese footwear on the world’s biggest fashion stages. Taking inspiration from Portuguese iconography, the campaigns always promoted an image of sophistication and quality, as well as offering star quality with names such as Sara Sampaio and Victoria Guerra. In 2018, once again, the marketing has been reinvented. In addition to sexy, Portuguese footwear now wants "to be something else”, like cool, for example.

The new campaign, which boasts the lush backdrop of Madeira, wants to highlight a country bursting with young talent, using an irreverence directed at new consumers and markets. The faces of Portuguese Shoes are now Maria Clara, Alécia Morais, Francisco Henriques, Isilda Moreira, João Lima, Maria Rosa and Ricardo Gomes, some of the most important names of a new generation of Portuguese models. The campaign goes further than previous ones, aiming "to transmit a general picture of Portugal abroad”. To achieve this, it combines reference points and seeks to strengthen the links between the various sectors of the economy, such as clothing, jewellery, real estate and tourism. This is the strategy to crack the North American market, which is the sixth largest for Portuguese footwear exports.