by Digital-native brand Aeyde is going physical.
The Berlin-based accessories label, launched in 2015, has carved out a loyal niche with its stylish, everyday shoes and sweet-spot prices. Now it’s set to roll out a series of temporary pop-ups, starting with one at Selfridges in London on Tuesday.
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“We really see this as a great opportunity to show the brand for the first time in a physical space directly in front of the customer,” said Aeyde co-founder and chief executive officer Luisa Dames, defining Selfridges as “the perfect partner to launch this series start. .”
“London felt like the most suitable city for us to run this – and Selfridges, as one of the most innovative doors in the department store landscape, is able to really showcase brands and build their own identity into the little corners of them in the department store. .”
“We are delighted to welcome Aeyde to Selfridges Shoe Galleries, bringing its Berlin architectural roots and understated luxury to modern design to our customers,” said Peter Rodwell, the luxury retailer’s accessories buying manager. “The pop-up will be home to the brand’s chic day-to-night styles, from their popular flats to boots.”
For the occasion, Dames commissioned London-based interior designer and gallerist Max Radford to translate Aeyde’s signature aesthetic rooted in the Bauhaus and Brutalism movements and its ethos of form and function into the installation.
“As a brand, we’re obviously very focused on our design language and Berlin basics,” said Dames. “For London we wanted to work with a local designer who could translate our values into an upscale experience, but who was also familiar with the country’s values. Max Redford is very talented and also between the art space and the more commercial shop space design, which we really liked,” she said.
As a result, the clean arrangement relies on metal elements — as a nod to Aeyde’s headquarters in Berlin — but combined with glass and stone details to infuse a “slightly warmer” feel, Dames said.
The partnership with local talents on the design aspect will be replicated for the other pop-ups that the brand is to implement. After Selfridges, a space will be unveiled at Le Bon Marché in Paris at the end of August, to leverage the city’s visibility and traffic after the Olympics.
However, Aeyde shoes already attract their fair share of attention, as seen on the likes of Taylor Swift, Sydney Sweeney, Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Anitta, to name but a few. The Selfridges pop-up will highlight the spring 2024 collection – recently promoted with a campaign featuring Lily McMenamy, photographer and model Nella Ngingo and artist Adina Fohlin – as well as its slim bestsellers. These include the square-toed Uma mary janes, the Gabriella satin ballerina flats, the Catrina pointed toe, the Stina kitten heel mules and Thekla fisherman sandals.
Along with its approachable and wide selection of footwear, priced between 225 euros and 745 euros, the brand offers jewelry and accessories such as belts and scarves, retailing between 145 euros and 345 euros.
The brand’s cool designs and strong positioning appeal to a 25 to 45-year-old consumer, who live mainly in capital cities such as Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles. (Dames said the data is based on registrations through Aeyde’s online store.)
She also cited TikTok as a tool that increased the hype around the brand and brought in additional sales after an account reviewed Uma’s style. She sees this social media as an additional platform that expands the brand’s audience, she said.
Dames said she wants Aeyde to “remain a digital-first brand and focus heavily on that, in the coming years as well,” also referring to the “brutal state of the retail industry” at the moment.
“I’d rather keep the risk less and focus on what I do really well internally and in my digital channels, where I can connect with my customer directly and build my own customer journey ,” she said. “From the beginning, Aeyde started with key distribution, we only work with it [about 100] partners. The brand is still quite niche in that sense, it is not overexposed super. As a brand owner, you have to find this great balance and not go too heavy in terms of distribution.”
“Still we wanted to bring the excitement to our customers around the globe [of really experiencing] the brand, to see and touch it and you can only generate this in a physical presence, where you can really bring your values to life and show how you intend to place your products present,” she continued. “If you work with 100 partners around the globe and everyone is present[s] you in a different way on his shopping hall, the brand does not seem as we see it, so to me [the pop-ups are] really an image issue. And location too, because we sit next to brands like Manolo Blahnik and Bottega Veneta.”
Aeyde’s distribution includes 118 high-end luxury stores, department stores and online retailers worldwide, including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Moda Operandi, Net-a-porter, SSense and LuisaViaRoma, among others.
The wholesale channel accounts for 60 percent of the company’s total sales, which Dames declined to disclose. She said last year’s sales were up 60 percent, boosted by a combination of consistent product offerings and engaging communications.
In the first quarter of 2024, the US was Aeyde’s largest market, accounting for 25 percent of sales. It was followed by the DACH area — which includes Germany, Austria and Switzerland — and the UK, which accounted for 20 and 10 percent of Aeyde’s sales, respectively.
“The brand is profitable, which is a huge achievement for me as a business owner as well,” said Dames. “So now is the time to think about how we also see it in the next phase and how we want to continue to build this.”
Dames, who has a background in cultural studies and economics and previously worked with private label Zalando, Executive Shoes & Acc. The department said that its approach has always leaned towards a “very long-term strategy” and that it knew “where you want to be in 10 years.”
“I’m building this business [thinking] where I want this brand to lead, where I want to position myself, which partners I want to work with and which ones I want to exclude,” she said. “As a brand, it is very important that you are firmly rooted in yourself and not looking at the market what others do. create risk and fundamentally believe in what you do.”
Dames’ vision is to keep Aeyde as an accessories house. Although she teased further growth in jewelry and did not rule out the development of bags in the future, she pointed out that there is still a lot of potential in the field of footwear, where she sees a polarization between the low-priced market and the luxury market. The former offers “affordable or cheap products, but made of terrible quality material,” while prices for the latter continue to rise, she said.
“That is very much about exclusion [customers] and I want to have a brand that includes a lot of different people,” said Dames, who also has an eye for unisex styles and hopes to add a men’s collection.
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