October 22, 2021 • 30 mins
Paul Farago is a second generation luxury footwear professional with expertise in international branding, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, and logistics. In 2016, he founded Ace Marks, a direct to consumer luxury men’s footwear brand with a mission to make luxury footwear accessible. Ace Marks was the most funded footwear project in crowdfunding history until 2019 having raised over $2.5M on Kickstarter. Prior to this he spent over 15 years at Kinderland, Inc. in multiple roles, including COO, where he oversaw sourcing, licensing & distribution operations for their portfolio of brands which have included D&G Jrs., Donald Pliner Jrs, Robert Cavalli, Giorgio Armani, and Venettini among various other luxury labels.
Ace Marks wasn't created on a whim, it is the product of a lifetime of experience in the luxury footwear business and realising that it’s broken - men shouldn't have to spend obscene amounts for a handcrafted world-class shoe. In late 2012 Paul realised that men had three choices when it came to dress shoes. Buy cheap, poorly made shoes, spend a little more to get a pair with a slight cosmetic upgrade, or spend an uncomfortable amount on a pair from the luxury super powers. If you like to look good, these aren’t good choices. Harnessing modern technology, the brand knew that they could get rid of middlemen and their markups to directly deliver a world-class, handcrafted shoe rivaling those of the top luxury brands, all at an attainable price.
In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we interview Paul Farago, Founder of Ace Marks about how this DTC luxury shoe brand was founded after a very successful Kickstarter campaign. With a family history of luxury Italian shoemaking the brand aims to offer high quality shoes at attainable prices. Our host Peter Brooker and Paul talk about the brand's recently created leather shoe and sneaker that folds flat in your luggage, how to launch a successful crowdfunding campaign, working with influencers, buffalo leather, the importance of developing relationships, how to keep your sneakers clean, and how they've been affect by Covid-19.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:12):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The menswear
style podcast. I'm your host,Peter Drucker. Today I'm talking
to Paul ferragosto, who is thefounder of Ace marks. Ace marks
are shoes built for the moderngentlemen. And I'll just give
you a little bio from thewebsite. No middlemen, fair
pricing luxury craftsmanship.
The Italian Craftsman at Acemarks are the same men and women
(00:32):
who work for some of the mostrenowned luxury shoe brands in
the world. Ace markscraftsmanship is deeply rooted
in Italian shoe making traditionand has been frightening for
four generations. And there isPaul to talk about Ace marks in
his own words.
Absolutely. Well, my name isPaul Fraga, I'm the founder and
(00:53):
CEO of Ace marks. And Ace marksis a direct to consumer men's
luxury shoe brand that I startedback in 2016 with the sole
purpose of making real luxuryshoes, high quality high craft
highly, very well crafted shoes,accessible to just about
everyone.
Okay, great. And you got thisstart with a Kickstarter
(01:16):
campaign, I've had many crashesand burns with Kickstarter
campaigns, perhaps you can justgive us an insight into what you
think got it right for you.
Absolutely. And that was alwaysone of our concerns. Even when
we made the decision to go toKickstarter, so many people have
been burned by Kickstartercampaigns in the past that we
(01:36):
didn't want our brand to startoff, even being associated with
the negativity that some that issometimes associated with
Kickstarter. But nonetheless, weended up going forward moving
forward with it. And I thinkthat what we got right on
Kickstarter is that we didn'treally sell the product, it
(01:57):
wasn't the campaign, it wasn'tso much about just you know,
here's another pair of shoes,and you need to buy this pair of
shoes, and you're gonna get adiscount on them, it was more
about selling ourselves, sellingour team selling our history,
selling our knowledge of theshoe, selling our knowledge of
production, selling our history,our history, or my history in
particular, in the footwearindustry, and, and really
(02:19):
getting our audience to buy intothe fact that, hey, we're able
to create something thatotherwise wouldn't be
attainable. And we're the rightteam to get this done for you.
And you can trust us. Andthankfully, that message
resonate resonated with ouraudience and with the people
that we you know, that wemarketed to. And we delivered as
we promised, and we delivered agreat product. And, you know,
(02:42):
that's why we were able to notjust do create that initial
campaign and be successful withit. But we created two other
campaigns right after that one,which were very successful as
well. And now we're onKickstarter for the fourth time.
So more more about more aboutthe, again, the team our
experience than just sellinganother product.
Okay. Maybe we can just drilldown a little bit on that
(03:05):
history. So this is a familybusiness or it was start with
your mom and dad were in theshoe making business. So you
knew the factories, the supplychain was this all part of the
package that you were deliveringas part of that Kickstarter
campaign?
Absolutely. My family's been inthe shoe business for a good
amount of time, over 30 years atthis point. And we've always
(03:25):
been in the higher end of theshoe business, the luxury, more
of the luxury side. But it wasalways more particular to
children shoes and a little bitof women. So it wasn't exactly
men shoes. But for sure, becausemy family I was able to build or
I was able to go to therelationships that they built
over a few decades, especiallyin Italy, in Italy, which is
(03:47):
where they started where theystarted their business and where
we ended up working with a lotof the famous brands that come
out of Italy and distributingthem here in the US. So for
sure, that had a lot to do withit. And I think that's one of
the reasons that our that ourbackers trusted us early on.
Right. Okay. But you stillneeded to get awareness to the
campaign. So how did you goabout that you got the package
(04:08):
you got, you know, you've got agreat product on your hands. I'm
assuming you know, how bend youtake that forward?
Yes, absolutely. And, you know,it's funny, because when when I
started a sparks, they spent agood amount of time just
creating the product anddesigning the product. And then
when I had the samples in myhand, I kind of thought to
myself, Well, great. So now I'mgoing to build a website, put
(04:28):
the shoes on there. And thenwhat how am I going to create
awareness for that website? Andthat's kind of where Kickstarter
came in. But then you writegreat now I have a Kickstarter
campaign, how do I createawareness for that Kickstarter
campaign? So I'd say that wefirst went to friends and family
so we wanted to make sure thatwithin the first 24 to 48 hours,
(04:51):
which are really pivotal in anyKickstarter campaign, you want
to make sure that you're fullyfunded in that timeframe. So we
made sure that we had thefriends and family to back us to
get us past that initial youknow think it was back then
$10,000 that we were seeking infunding 10 or $15,000 I remember
exactly the first campaign soonce we had that first $115,000
(05:13):
in the bank essentially it thedifference becomes that once
you're funded other people wantto join the campaign you know
your marketing dollars startconverting much better because
it's no longer so much of a riskas to whether or not you'll ever
get the product right peoplecome on to the campaign page
they see hey, they're alreadyfunded so if I back them I'm
gonna get this product becauseeverything is kosher and open up
(05:36):
right in the campaign so so youknow once we had the friends and
family which which really spenta lot of time going out for
everyone you know, a couplemonths before the campaign every
business associate that ever wasinvolved in anyone I've ever
emailed for from one of myprevious businesses any vendor
everyone knew that we werelaunching this campaign so I
wanted to make sure that we hadas as much support as possible
(05:59):
but after that, honestly we kindof were scrambling because we
kind of we weren't even 100%sure we're going to get to that
point and once we did get to theto that point we're like okay,
so what's what's kind of thenext step here and so the the
lowest hanging fruit at leaststart in our minds at that time
was influencers This was 2016 soinfluencer marketing was not
(06:21):
what it is today. And it wasn'tas big of a big of an industry
was there but a lot of the guysthat have 345 6 million
followers today are subscribersthen YouTube back then had maybe
one to 400,000 at most so wekind of went that route right so
we figured we need to addcredibility to our campaign
people don't know the brandKickstarter helps a little bit
(06:42):
because at least run thatplatform but we want guys that
will tell their audiences Heylike I've seen the product I've
touched it I felt it and you canyou can trust that these guys
are the real deal that thisproduct is the real deal. So I
wanted to add more credibilityand so we got very fortunate I'd
say because we reached out to atonne of influencers and we
(07:02):
ended up building some greatrelationships completely on a on
a fluke with with a group ofinfluencers which are pretty big
on on YouTube today. Guys likeReal Men Real Style alhfam
Antonio and you got aGentleman's Gazette I forget the
the yeahrough rough not rough yeah felt
(07:28):
sorry sorry wrap up I just Yeah,I just caught one of his videos
he's like well I want to talktoday about Ace marks and as
everyone's knows I've got 10pairs of these shoes and
counting so you know that's agreat advocate and friend a
friend of my other show johnShanahan from that account as
wellhe's absolutely all great guys
and all guys have had a chanceto meet and speak with
(07:50):
personally and and a guy likeGentleman's Gazette like Raphael
actually it's pretty interestingabout him is you may have
noticed that he doesn't reallytake on sponsors at all anymore
so he's he's huge when it comesto his credibility and any
product that he did offer backin the day when when he was
accepting sponsors he fullyvetted so he kind of he grilled
us he he required you know Xamount of pairs of shoes you
(08:14):
want to see them test and trythem and wonder he really wanted
to make sure that before herecommended it to his audience
that he really believed in theproduct and you know, he's he's
told me Actually, I probablyshouldn't say I was gonna say he
told me in private but there's areason he told me
Let me tell you something aboutthese gentlemen especially I
(08:35):
don't know Rafi I do know johnthese these guys who do have an
audience start to getaccountable for recommendation
so they would say look, youknow, they don't go to the brand
if the products no good they'dgo to them as in john would get
emails and saying, you know, whydid you recommend this x y Zed?
So they have to really make surethat you say the vetting process
(08:58):
has to be pretty tight becauseotherwise they'll get the emails
and not you right?
Absolutely. And that group ofguys in particular, the
influential guys I guess you cancall them because they're all
managed by the same by this alot of them are managed by the
same company, same managementcompany. They really they don't
just take money from anyoneright? So kind of like what
(09:19):
you're saying they generally vetvet their products very well.
And what I was gonna say wasRotfeld was kind of like that
gateway right? So fell approvedtheir product, a lot of those
other guys knew that it was itwas all right, right, that it
was agood, he is the gatekeeper,
right, and they can feelcomfortable, they can feel
comfortable promoting the brand.
So you know, we kind of fellinto that and we built some
(09:40):
great relationships with thoseguys through the years and that
was that they really were a hugepart of our success, especially
in the first two or threeKickstarter campaigns that we
ran. And and then our end Youknow, I think they kept on
working with us because wealways delivered what we
promised and, and like you saidabout, john, there have been
instances We're consumers reachout to them and say, Hey, like I
(10:01):
had a problem with ace marks,you know, why do you recommend
them and actually, we had oneparticular situation where,
where, you know, we worked very,very closely with them and the
customers to resolve thoseissues. And thankfully, you
know, it wasn't a big deal butuh, but we always strive to give
the best customer servicepossible. And those guys
appreciate that great.
(10:22):
And so how big the team is, ifthere is ever is a problem and
you kind of front of house withthis, I mean, does it come from
a team? Like how personable isyour service?
very personable. So we're a teamof seven right now. And we have
actually a lot of look at a lotof our reviews on our website,
you'll see that they mentionedin particular filly was her head
(10:43):
of customer service. And sheknows our our motto really, is
to make it and we really meanthis to make the customer happy,
no matter what. So we reallybend over backwards when you
call her office, you know, shepicks up the phone or someone
picks up the phone, and we getan answering machine you don't
get one of those services, let'ssay dial one for x dial two for
whatever, you got a personimmediately I think for me, the
(11:09):
idea was always that I wanted asmart to be have that feel of of
that local store they walk intoand everybody knows your name.
Yeah, so we kind of that's ourapproach to customer service,
you know, and actually justbefore I got on here, Phil, he
was texting me about what shefelt was one of her VIP clients,
who sent her a video of himselfwearing our shoes and playing
(11:30):
the cello. Really nice video. Soshe she she really builds those
types of bonds and thoserelationships with those
customers and VIP client doesn'tnecessarily mean the guy spends
a lot of money with us. It'sjust someone that she just talks
to regularly, whether or nothe's buying a pair of shoes. So
well, that's for us. And youhave just on the website over
(11:52):
2000 positive reviews ontrustpilot. So yeah, knocking
that out of the park. So thankyou, Paul, talk to me a little
bit about the sustainableelement please of the brand and,
and moments of your supply chainand how do you kind of keep an
eye on all that?
Absolutely. So so there's a fewdifferent you know, our initial
(12:14):
approach to sustainability. Tobe frank when we launched these
marks sustainability wasn'twasn't the biggest purpose of
the brand. But what we alwayshad in mind was that we wanted
to keep the shoes out oflandfills right so when you're
done with a pair of shoes, mostpeople just kind of toss them so
that's partly where buybackprogramme came in. So any pair
(12:37):
of shoes that you buy from uswill actually buy it back
whenever you're done wearingthem or don't want them anymore
and we'll give you $50 towards anew pair of shoes and what we do
with those shoes as we don't wepartnered up with a with a group
called career gear and they tryto help men in need get back on
their feet so I've had two jobsguys yeah, yeah huge obstacle to
(12:58):
simoes men that have been downand out and trying to get back
into the workforce is havingproper clothing and footwear to
show up to interviews in and sowe work very closely with them
and donate the shoes that we buyback sometimes we will refurbish
them and then donate them andmake to make sure that these
guys have shoes so for ussustainability that's kind of
one part of it we try to keepthe shoes out of landfills for
(13:19):
as long as possible. Right andtwo I think you may have seen in
our new campaign that we justlaunched on Kickstarter we're
we're we're using sustainablebuffalo leathers and and that's
that really comes that's verydifferent. We usually we tend to
use calfskin leather in most ofour shoes in this case we're
using buffalo leather whichcomes from Italy's very small
(13:41):
but very well known dairyindustry we have ever had
buffalo mozzarella you've andyou know that's a big export
from Italy that's that's kind ofwhere leather comes from from
that industry.
So it's a byproduct of the ofthe meat exactly, actually more
of the dairy industry I mean,unfortunately water buffalo
eventually die, they're notnecessarily slaughtered for
(14:02):
their meat, they're more capitalfor their for their milk
production. But once they passaway then all parts of the
animal are used and you know,the leathers are used in our
case to make shoes. So what'svery nice about the Italian
water buffalo industry inparticular is that it's
generally they're generallyraised in small farms where the
(14:24):
the livelihood, the way that thebuffalo live is extremely
important to them so that thequality of the milk and
therefore the quality of theircheese is as high as possible.
So so that that's kind of thesustainability part when it
comes to our current offeringswhich are made out of Buffalo
leather.
Nice. Have you thought aboutdoing like a little ancillary
product, you buy a pair of thebuffalo shoes but you also get
(14:46):
some of the cheese from thefarm. I mean, I'm just throwing
spaghetti at the wall but Ithink you could kill a couple of
birds with one stone here.
I think one of the moredifficult industries other than
the shoe industry has to be theperishable foods industry. So
I'm gonna stay away from thatone, but it's not a bad idea.
All right, okay, well,maybe we'll have a word with the
farmhouse after the show. Buttalk about the Kickstarter
(15:07):
campaign please. Paul says thatthere's a new one that's on the
website as it launched it.
Yeah, the new campaign launchedat the end of September, it's a
30 day campaign which ends nowon October 27. Okay, it's this
really actually this is really aproduct that we wanted to launch
(15:28):
back in 2019 or I should sayback in early 2020. It was
developed in 2019. But thepandemic kind of threw a little
wrench on this project. Becauseit's a travel shoe as you may
have seen, so the idea behindthis product and this is a
little bit of a deviation fromwhat we usually launch usually
our products you know, our newcollections are you know,
(15:50):
different styles of shoes,different colours, colours of
shoes, possibly differentconstruction. This is completely
different than what we usuallydo because it involves a little
bit of materials technology, anda completely innovative way to
pack your shoes. You probablyknow Peter that if you have a
pair of shoes and they'releather shoes you end up with
(16:10):
create leather shoes,take them in the box and then
you have I mean from your mouthto my girlfriend's ears we did a
bit of shopping on our last tripaway maybe got a bit carried
away and getting the boxes backyou know, we had to buy extra
carry on luggage and stuff likethat it was a it was a real
headache for me so I'm veryinterested in this facet.
(16:31):
Exactly and so I have to kind ofsay the same about myself I
leave my luggage shopping toowhen I'm in Italy because I go
there with a carry on and I comeback with a bigger suitcase.
Yes, for that. So So thisactually came this idea came
about because I was on my way toactually I went to destination
wedding back in 2019 and justbecause of the two it was at a
(16:54):
beach in Cabo and I was going tospend maybe two to three hours
in a pair of dress shoes youknow, during the actual ceremony
but the rest of the time waseither going to be barefoot or
with flip flops or whateverwasn't casual shoe. And I had to
check in my luggage just becauseI had to bring this pair of
dress shoes and I didn't wantthem to get creased and I had
you know, shoe trees inside ofthem. The whole the whole thing
(17:15):
I was just annoyed that I justspent all that money on on my
check baggage fee just becauseof that pair of shoes. So when I
was in Italy, I was working withour factory and two things kind
of came about one which was thatthere's this kind of new
innovation in toe and heelcounters that it's made of a
polymer that you can completelyand actually I wish I had a
(17:37):
whether this is something newanyways but it's made out of
polymer that you can justcompletely crumble and comes
right back to life right so itdoesn't lose its shape just
because it's flattened or or youknow crumbled Okay in this case
and then you know, so that waskind of cool so we kind of had
that down which was we now wereable to flatten the shoe with
(17:58):
these new toe and heel counters.
But then if you flat in regularcask and shoe you're still gonna
end up with creases and that'snot going to be very pretty so
we had to solve a we internallycalled the creasing problem and
that's where you know againworking with our factory the the
idea of using buffalo leathercame in and buffalo leather is
naturally much more elastic thancalf skin. So if you do flex it
or if you do bend it it comesback to life It doesn't doesn't
(18:23):
necessarily lose shape orcrumble or crease the way that
cap skin does. So when youcombine those two those two
materials the toe and heelcounters and the buffalo leather
we were able to come up withthis product of a leather shoe
that completely can collapse youcan pack it super tight in a
suitcase we have some chips andsome videos obviously on that
campaign page you can seeexactly what I'm talking about.
(18:45):
And it comes back to life whenyou get to your destination you
can just you know unwrap them oron unfold them or uncollapse
them as we say and you wouldhave never known they just had
them thrown in your in a darkcorner of your carry on luggage
or in your backpack or whateverit is so it's a pretty cool
innovationand do you then get to pattern
(19:06):
this polymer or is it somethingthat no no okay,
I I wish I was a scientist inthat way but no this is a this
is something that you couldprobably get I'm not actually I
shouldn't say that. It may bejust our supplier that that
created this I'm not 100% sure.
But umbut it's innovation that is very
(19:28):
makes this particular campaignI'm very interested in it I've
got to say becauseexactly it's it's for sure
innovation and you know whatmost of you I guess in theory
doesn't have that many uses, orat least for sure most other
brands would never use it likethis because the whole idea of a
Tonio Cantor's issue tocompletely keep it shape and to
prevent it from collapsing orfrom folding. So yeah, but I
(19:51):
mean this is something a littlebit different.
For people that had thewanderlust Firebird you know, at
least travel a lot before. WeAnd travel, we would maybe get
on the planes in our dress shoesor we would just like you say
get on the extra carry onluggage just to accommodate this
fix. But you know, now havingsomething like this could be a
real game changer for especiallylike the, you know, the
(20:13):
corporate or the executivethat's doing a lot of
travelling. Right. And there'sanother way to look at a lot of
guys go for a couple of days ona business trip, and you know,
you're travelling your dressshoes and your suit. And then
you may want to have like, anextra pair of sneakers to go out
or night or just, you know, towalk around the city when you
have some free time. So yeah,make it a lapse, collapsible
version of our sneakers as well,just for that purpose. Or if you
(20:34):
go to the gym in the morning,you know, you don't want to take
up too much space in your inyour gym bag or your backpack
when whatever it is. There's alot of a lot of uses.
I'm loving this. I'm loving it.
So it's on the website. Now.
We've got by the time thispodcast goes out the end of
October there will there abouts.
Absolutely. And where are wewith the figure that we need to
(20:56):
hit?
We already passed that figurewithin the first like 30
minutes. Oh. So we're way beyondthat. We're at about $205,000 if
I'm not mistaken now so we'llprobably in this campaign
somewhere in the 250 to $300,000range, which is, which is pretty
nice. Pretty exciting for us.
(21:17):
I see you do a TED talk on howto do Kickstarter campaigns. And
you got the formula down.
Thank you. Yeah, I'd like this.
I'd like to think we're prettydecent at this. You know, we've
also been running we've been offa Kickstarter since 118. But
we've been running crowdfundingcampaigns aren't on our own
crowdfunding platform that webuilt. We did that in 2019 and
2020 as well. So right, okay, sothis is different. We've been
(21:40):
doing this for a little bit.
Nice. Okay, great. Well, asidefrom the campaign for what plans
you have for the near future,have you kind of gotten over any
pandemic bumps that might havehit supply chain, perhaps you
can talk about any issues? Yeah.
Now we've had we've had plentyof pandemic bumps. In general,
you know, the idea of peoplesitting at home and not going
(22:02):
out was not the best for fordresser sales in general. But
thankfully, we came out and thisyear has been pretty good,
especially compared to lastyear. Supply Chain wise, we got
very we're very fortunate lastyear in 2020 that our main
factory was an original part ofItaly that was greatly affected
by shutdowns, they shut down fora couple of months. But overall,
(22:25):
they were still able togenerally deliver there are a
few delays but nothing nothingmajors. I'd like what you're
seeing coming out of Asia rightnow. Obviously the cost of
freights a little bit higher andthere's there's a lot of added
added expenses and headaches inthe supply chain and
logistically but but overall Ireally can't complain too much
(22:46):
are you know, we are fat, ourmain factory especially as
they're really our realpartners. And you know, we had a
very nice sense of camaraderiethat we're gonna help each other
out as much as possible to getthrough through those tough
times because as you canimagine, it was difficult for
them not just for us. So we havewe have really good partners on
(23:06):
the supply side.
I mean, this is kind of where Iguess you lean on those
relationships like that havebeen nurtured over the years,
many years of like your mom anddad being in the business as
well. This is kind of what Iguess you have that a lot of
many other brands don't have, ina way.
Absolutely. And you know, I didtake the time to speak to a lot
(23:26):
of my competitors in 2020 sincewe all had a little bit of
downtime and that was really myfocus of the year to become
friendly with as many people inthe industry as possible
especially on the direct toconsumer side. And it really
made me realise exactly whatyou're saying that that we're
we're very fortunate to have therelationships that we have,
because a lot of a lot of ourcompetitors really had
(23:48):
difficulties not just becausetheir factories may have shut
down because in a lot of cases,they may not have been the most
important client for thosefactories and they never really
had those strong bonds are theyworking through an agent or the
owners to necessarily have thedirect relationships with the
factories and they had anemployee working with them the
employer was no longer there. Sothere are a lot of factors that
(24:09):
really really hurt their supplychains and we really never felt
any of that. And you know, youinvoke evoke my parents one more
time over there and the onething that they always taught me
is that a good reputation goesfar but a bad reputation goes
further so working withsuppliers you know, to the shoe
world's very small like it'svery difficult that you don't
(24:30):
know someone who knows someonewho knows your suppliers in
almost any case in almost anycountry. So when when you do
wrong by them, pretty much thewhole industry knows. So we've
always made it a very big pointto do by do right by all of our
suppliers. And this goes backagain, you know, 30 plus years
which is why I was able to starta smart for the relationships
(24:52):
that we have and go back toItaly after so many years that
my parents had left the doinggreat. Do you ever think about
doing collaboration Now thatyou're in this kind of nice
community with some of yourcompetitors, I guess some of
them might be friends. Now, doyou ever have any kind of
crossovers?
Yes, actually Funny you shouldask. We have we have it with a
(25:15):
lot of my competitors. We'veI've, I mean, we speak almost
regularly at this point, we'redoing a collaboration with a
sock brand, not necessarily ashoe brand, should be coming out
soon. And we're doing and thisI'll know, I'll have more
details by the end of the year.
But hopefully by early nextyear, there will be a very big
collaboration between us and oneof our main competitors. You
know, but that's to bedetermined, and hopefully
(25:38):
everything finalises the waythat I expect that it will, but
well, we have we have a lot ofthat coming down in the
pipeline, as well ascollaborations with with some
artists that we've also builtrelationships with over the last
year or so. So Oh, great. I havea lot in the works in terms of
collaborations.
Now artists in Italy, artists inMiami, can you lend us
(25:59):
artists in the US, US andCanada?
Okay. All right, great. Well,maybe in the new year, we'll
have you back on and we canperhaps talk about some of those
collaborations and celebratethose. That'd
be amazing. Thank you.
Well, in the meantime, Acemarks.com a place to go to not
only check out the campaign, butalso these wonderful hand
handcrafted dress shoes, andsneakers. And, Paul, I'm gonna
(26:22):
ask you a question. I'veliterally just come to front of
mind. I do ask this we have acouple of people that come on
the show where especially ifthey've got ahead in the sneaker
world how how best Can you keepthe midsole clean on a white
midsole for a shoe? Because Iwalk pigeon toed and it's the
first thing that goes in theshoe or the mid soles Have you
got any kind of advice on that?
(26:43):
I have a few. A few pieces ofadvice for that one. Sphere by
i'm not mistaken has come outwith a product specifically to
clean that part of the shoe.
sneaker sphere Yeah, SAP HR. Andmore traditional method is using
toothpaste with fluoride thatworks. And some people use also
(27:04):
a mixture of baking soda withthat like a very, very slight,
slight, slight touch of whitevinegar. But you want to make
sure you don't get that on youruppers because that could damage
your uppers pretty quickly.
Yes, yeah, I think that's aproblem that I've had with a lot
(27:24):
of my stuff a bit too slapdashwith it. I always say sorry.
I was gonna say now you know,it's very funny is that you
know, that's that's a verycommon issue that we hear. And
so a lot of people asked us tomake sneakers, less sneakers
with white soles and moresneakers with gum soles or black
soles. But Funny enough, everytime we come out with those,
just the white soles outsellthose.
(27:46):
They look the same. But right Ido have a bunch of black
sneakers with black metals forthat exact reason. But they're I
don't think the women like them.
I mean, my girlfriend certainlyhates him. She says these are
these are not anything that youcan go out in. They're just too
casual for smartware they're toosmart, casual. It's it's kind of
thatwe're kind of in between. Yeah,
right. That's exactly right. Andactually someone was, I think it
(28:09):
was my wife maybe my wife maybeone time I wore a pair of our
black sneakers with a blackmidsole and she said I look like
a waiter.
Well, they said that aboutGeorge George Lazenby and look
at him now he's strong. He'sgetting all the headlines.
Listen. I'm off on a tangent.
Paul, thanks so much for yourtime. And well done. Congrats on
(28:31):
having a wonderful product forall of us to enjoy and good luck
with the Kickstarter campaign.
We'll be certainly getting onthe back of that.
Thank you, Peter. Appreciate it.
Thank you very much for havingme today.
Already. How about that? Thankyou Paul. The website once again
(28:54):
Ace marks.com is the place togo. And if you want to check out
the show notes, more articles onfashion, travel lifestyle, etc.
It's www dot menswear. style.coUK. If you're interested in
coming on the show, maybe tellus about your brand and your
journey. Then you can email ushere at info at menswear.
style.co.uk Okay, thanks forlistening, and until next time,
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The menswear
style podcast. I'm your host,Peter Drucker. Today I'm talking
to Paul ferragosto, who is thefounder of Ace marks. Ace marks
are shoes built for the moderngentlemen. And I'll just give
you a little bio from thewebsite. No middlemen, fair
pricing luxury craftsmanship.
The Italian Craftsman at Acemarks are the same men and women
(00:32):
who work for some of the mostrenowned luxury shoe brands in
the world. Ace markscraftsmanship is deeply rooted
in Italian shoe making traditionand has been frightening for
four generations. And there isPaul to talk about Ace marks in
his own words.
Absolutely. Well, my name isPaul Fraga, I'm the founder and
(00:53):
CEO of Ace marks. And Ace marksis a direct to consumer men's
luxury shoe brand that I startedback in 2016 with the sole
purpose of making real luxuryshoes, high quality high craft
highly, very well crafted shoes,accessible to just about
everyone.
Okay, great. And you got thisstart with a Kickstarter
(01:16):
campaign, I've had many crashesand burns with Kickstarter
campaigns, perhaps you can justgive us an insight into what you
think got it right for you.
Absolutely. And that was alwaysone of our concerns. Even when
we made the decision to go toKickstarter, so many people have
been burned by Kickstartercampaigns in the past that we
(01:36):
didn't want our brand to startoff, even being associated with
the negativity that some that issometimes associated with
Kickstarter. But nonetheless, weended up going forward moving
forward with it. And I thinkthat what we got right on
Kickstarter is that we didn'treally sell the product, it
(01:57):
wasn't the campaign, it wasn'tso much about just you know,
here's another pair of shoes,and you need to buy this pair of
shoes, and you're gonna get adiscount on them, it was more
about selling ourselves, sellingour team selling our history,
selling our knowledge of theshoe, selling our knowledge of
production, selling our history,our history, or my history in
particular, in the footwearindustry, and, and really
(02:19):
getting our audience to buy intothe fact that, hey, we're able
to create something thatotherwise wouldn't be
attainable. And we're the rightteam to get this done for you.
And you can trust us. Andthankfully, that message
resonate resonated with ouraudience and with the people
that we you know, that wemarketed to. And we delivered as
we promised, and we delivered agreat product. And, you know,
(02:42):
that's why we were able to notjust do create that initial
campaign and be successful withit. But we created two other
campaigns right after that one,which were very successful as
well. And now we're onKickstarter for the fourth time.
So more more about more aboutthe, again, the team our
experience than just sellinganother product.
Okay. Maybe we can just drilldown a little bit on that
(03:05):
history. So this is a familybusiness or it was start with
your mom and dad were in theshoe making business. So you
knew the factories, the supplychain was this all part of the
package that you were deliveringas part of that Kickstarter
campaign?
Absolutely. My family's been inthe shoe business for a good
amount of time, over 30 years atthis point. And we've always
(03:25):
been in the higher end of theshoe business, the luxury, more
of the luxury side. But it wasalways more particular to
children shoes and a little bitof women. So it wasn't exactly
men shoes. But for sure, becausemy family I was able to build or
I was able to go to therelationships that they built
over a few decades, especiallyin Italy, in Italy, which is
(03:47):
where they started where theystarted their business and where
we ended up working with a lotof the famous brands that come
out of Italy and distributingthem here in the US. So for
sure, that had a lot to do withit. And I think that's one of
the reasons that our that ourbackers trusted us early on.
Right. Okay. But you stillneeded to get awareness to the
campaign. So how did you goabout that you got the package
(04:08):
you got, you know, you've got agreat product on your hands. I'm
assuming you know, how bend youtake that forward?
Yes, absolutely. And, you know,it's funny, because when when I
started a sparks, they spent agood amount of time just
creating the product anddesigning the product. And then
when I had the samples in myhand, I kind of thought to
myself, Well, great. So now I'mgoing to build a website, put
(04:28):
the shoes on there. And thenwhat how am I going to create
awareness for that website? Andthat's kind of where Kickstarter
came in. But then you writegreat now I have a Kickstarter
campaign, how do I createawareness for that Kickstarter
campaign? So I'd say that wefirst went to friends and family
so we wanted to make sure thatwithin the first 24 to 48 hours,
(04:51):
which are really pivotal in anyKickstarter campaign, you want
to make sure that you're fullyfunded in that timeframe. So we
made sure that we had thefriends and family to back us to
get us past that initial youknow think it was back then
$10,000 that we were seeking infunding 10 or $15,000 I remember
exactly the first campaign soonce we had that first $115,000
(05:13):
in the bank essentially it thedifference becomes that once
you're funded other people wantto join the campaign you know
your marketing dollars startconverting much better because
it's no longer so much of a riskas to whether or not you'll ever
get the product right peoplecome on to the campaign page
they see hey, they're alreadyfunded so if I back them I'm
gonna get this product becauseeverything is kosher and open up
(05:36):
right in the campaign so so youknow once we had the friends and
family which which really spenta lot of time going out for
everyone you know, a couplemonths before the campaign every
business associate that ever wasinvolved in anyone I've ever
emailed for from one of myprevious businesses any vendor
everyone knew that we werelaunching this campaign so I
wanted to make sure that we hadas as much support as possible
(05:59):
but after that, honestly we kindof were scrambling because we
kind of we weren't even 100%sure we're going to get to that
point and once we did get to theto that point we're like okay,
so what's what's kind of thenext step here and so the the
lowest hanging fruit at leaststart in our minds at that time
was influencers This was 2016 soinfluencer marketing was not
(06:21):
what it is today. And it wasn'tas big of a big of an industry
was there but a lot of the guysthat have 345 6 million
followers today are subscribersthen YouTube back then had maybe
one to 400,000 at most so wekind of went that route right so
we figured we need to addcredibility to our campaign
people don't know the brandKickstarter helps a little bit
(06:42):
because at least run thatplatform but we want guys that
will tell their audiences Heylike I've seen the product I've
touched it I felt it and you canyou can trust that these guys
are the real deal that thisproduct is the real deal. So I
wanted to add more credibilityand so we got very fortunate I'd
say because we reached out to atonne of influencers and we
(07:02):
ended up building some greatrelationships completely on a on
a fluke with with a group ofinfluencers which are pretty big
on on YouTube today. Guys likeReal Men Real Style alhfam
Antonio and you got aGentleman's Gazette I forget the
the yeahrough rough not rough yeah felt
(07:28):
sorry sorry wrap up I just Yeah,I just caught one of his videos
he's like well I want to talktoday about Ace marks and as
everyone's knows I've got 10pairs of these shoes and
counting so you know that's agreat advocate and friend a
friend of my other show johnShanahan from that account as
wellhe's absolutely all great guys
and all guys have had a chanceto meet and speak with
(07:50):
personally and and a guy likeGentleman's Gazette like Raphael
actually it's pretty interestingabout him is you may have
noticed that he doesn't reallytake on sponsors at all anymore
so he's he's huge when it comesto his credibility and any
product that he did offer backin the day when when he was
accepting sponsors he fullyvetted so he kind of he grilled
us he he required you know Xamount of pairs of shoes you
(08:14):
want to see them test and trythem and wonder he really wanted
to make sure that before herecommended it to his audience
that he really believed in theproduct and you know, he's he's
told me Actually, I probablyshouldn't say I was gonna say he
told me in private but there's areason he told me
Let me tell you something aboutthese gentlemen especially I
(08:35):
don't know Rafi I do know johnthese these guys who do have an
audience start to getaccountable for recommendation
so they would say look, youknow, they don't go to the brand
if the products no good they'dgo to them as in john would get
emails and saying, you know, whydid you recommend this x y Zed?
So they have to really make surethat you say the vetting process
(08:58):
has to be pretty tight becauseotherwise they'll get the emails
and not you right?
Absolutely. And that group ofguys in particular, the
influential guys I guess you cancall them because they're all
managed by the same by this alot of them are managed by the
same company, same managementcompany. They really they don't
just take money from anyoneright? So kind of like what
(09:19):
you're saying they generally vetvet their products very well.
And what I was gonna say wasRotfeld was kind of like that
gateway right? So fell approvedtheir product, a lot of those
other guys knew that it was itwas all right, right, that it
was agood, he is the gatekeeper,
right, and they can feelcomfortable, they can feel
comfortable promoting the brand.
So you know, we kind of fellinto that and we built some
(09:40):
great relationships with thoseguys through the years and that
was that they really were a hugepart of our success, especially
in the first two or threeKickstarter campaigns that we
ran. And and then our end Youknow, I think they kept on
working with us because wealways delivered what we
promised and, and like you saidabout, john, there have been
instances We're consumers reachout to them and say, Hey, like I
(10:01):
had a problem with ace marks,you know, why do you recommend
them and actually, we had oneparticular situation where,
where, you know, we worked very,very closely with them and the
customers to resolve thoseissues. And thankfully, you
know, it wasn't a big deal butuh, but we always strive to give
the best customer servicepossible. And those guys
appreciate that great.
(10:22):
And so how big the team is, ifthere is ever is a problem and
you kind of front of house withthis, I mean, does it come from
a team? Like how personable isyour service?
very personable. So we're a teamof seven right now. And we have
actually a lot of look at a lotof our reviews on our website,
you'll see that they mentionedin particular filly was her head
(10:43):
of customer service. And sheknows our our motto really, is
to make it and we really meanthis to make the customer happy,
no matter what. So we reallybend over backwards when you
call her office, you know, shepicks up the phone or someone
picks up the phone, and we getan answering machine you don't
get one of those services, let'ssay dial one for x dial two for
whatever, you got a personimmediately I think for me, the
(11:09):
idea was always that I wanted asmart to be have that feel of of
that local store they walk intoand everybody knows your name.
Yeah, so we kind of that's ourapproach to customer service,
you know, and actually justbefore I got on here, Phil, he
was texting me about what shefelt was one of her VIP clients,
who sent her a video of himselfwearing our shoes and playing
(11:30):
the cello. Really nice video. Soshe she she really builds those
types of bonds and thoserelationships with those
customers and VIP client doesn'tnecessarily mean the guy spends
a lot of money with us. It'sjust someone that she just talks
to regularly, whether or nothe's buying a pair of shoes. So
well, that's for us. And youhave just on the website over
(11:52):
2000 positive reviews ontrustpilot. So yeah, knocking
that out of the park. So thankyou, Paul, talk to me a little
bit about the sustainableelement please of the brand and,
and moments of your supply chainand how do you kind of keep an
eye on all that?
Absolutely. So so there's a fewdifferent you know, our initial
(12:14):
approach to sustainability. Tobe frank when we launched these
marks sustainability wasn'twasn't the biggest purpose of
the brand. But what we alwayshad in mind was that we wanted
to keep the shoes out oflandfills right so when you're
done with a pair of shoes, mostpeople just kind of toss them so
that's partly where buybackprogramme came in. So any pair
(12:37):
of shoes that you buy from uswill actually buy it back
whenever you're done wearingthem or don't want them anymore
and we'll give you $50 towards anew pair of shoes and what we do
with those shoes as we don't wepartnered up with a with a group
called career gear and they tryto help men in need get back on
their feet so I've had two jobsguys yeah, yeah huge obstacle to
(12:58):
simoes men that have been downand out and trying to get back
into the workforce is havingproper clothing and footwear to
show up to interviews in and sowe work very closely with them
and donate the shoes that we buyback sometimes we will refurbish
them and then donate them andmake to make sure that these
guys have shoes so for ussustainability that's kind of
one part of it we try to keepthe shoes out of landfills for
(13:19):
as long as possible. Right andtwo I think you may have seen in
our new campaign that we justlaunched on Kickstarter we're
we're we're using sustainablebuffalo leathers and and that's
that really comes that's verydifferent. We usually we tend to
use calfskin leather in most ofour shoes in this case we're
using buffalo leather whichcomes from Italy's very small
(13:41):
but very well known dairyindustry we have ever had
buffalo mozzarella you've andyou know that's a big export
from Italy that's that's kind ofwhere leather comes from from
that industry.
So it's a byproduct of the ofthe meat exactly, actually more
of the dairy industry I mean,unfortunately water buffalo
eventually die, they're notnecessarily slaughtered for
(14:02):
their meat, they're more capitalfor their for their milk
production. But once they passaway then all parts of the
animal are used and you know,the leathers are used in our
case to make shoes. So what'svery nice about the Italian
water buffalo industry inparticular is that it's
generally they're generallyraised in small farms where the
(14:24):
the livelihood, the way that thebuffalo live is extremely
important to them so that thequality of the milk and
therefore the quality of theircheese is as high as possible.
So so that that's kind of thesustainability part when it
comes to our current offeringswhich are made out of Buffalo
leather.
Nice. Have you thought aboutdoing like a little ancillary
product, you buy a pair of thebuffalo shoes but you also get
(14:46):
some of the cheese from thefarm. I mean, I'm just throwing
spaghetti at the wall but Ithink you could kill a couple of
birds with one stone here.
I think one of the moredifficult industries other than
the shoe industry has to be theperishable foods industry. So
I'm gonna stay away from thatone, but it's not a bad idea.
All right, okay, well,maybe we'll have a word with the
farmhouse after the show. Buttalk about the Kickstarter
(15:07):
campaign please. Paul says thatthere's a new one that's on the
website as it launched it.
Yeah, the new campaign launchedat the end of September, it's a
30 day campaign which ends nowon October 27. Okay, it's this
really actually this is really aproduct that we wanted to launch
(15:28):
back in 2019 or I should sayback in early 2020. It was
developed in 2019. But thepandemic kind of threw a little
wrench on this project. Becauseit's a travel shoe as you may
have seen, so the idea behindthis product and this is a
little bit of a deviation fromwhat we usually launch usually
our products you know, our newcollections are you know,
(15:50):
different styles of shoes,different colours, colours of
shoes, possibly differentconstruction. This is completely
different than what we usuallydo because it involves a little
bit of materials technology, anda completely innovative way to
pack your shoes. You probablyknow Peter that if you have a
pair of shoes and they'releather shoes you end up with
(16:10):
create leather shoes,take them in the box and then
you have I mean from your mouthto my girlfriend's ears we did a
bit of shopping on our last tripaway maybe got a bit carried
away and getting the boxes backyou know, we had to buy extra
carry on luggage and stuff likethat it was a it was a real
headache for me so I'm veryinterested in this facet.
(16:31):
Exactly and so I have to kind ofsay the same about myself I
leave my luggage shopping toowhen I'm in Italy because I go
there with a carry on and I comeback with a bigger suitcase.
Yes, for that. So So thisactually came this idea came
about because I was on my way toactually I went to destination
wedding back in 2019 and justbecause of the two it was at a
(16:54):
beach in Cabo and I was going tospend maybe two to three hours
in a pair of dress shoes youknow, during the actual ceremony
but the rest of the time waseither going to be barefoot or
with flip flops or whateverwasn't casual shoe. And I had to
check in my luggage just becauseI had to bring this pair of
dress shoes and I didn't wantthem to get creased and I had
you know, shoe trees inside ofthem. The whole the whole thing
(17:15):
I was just annoyed that I justspent all that money on on my
check baggage fee just becauseof that pair of shoes. So when I
was in Italy, I was working withour factory and two things kind
of came about one which was thatthere's this kind of new
innovation in toe and heelcounters that it's made of a
polymer that you can completelyand actually I wish I had a
(17:37):
whether this is something newanyways but it's made out of
polymer that you can justcompletely crumble and comes
right back to life right so itdoesn't lose its shape just
because it's flattened or or youknow crumbled Okay in this case
and then you know, so that waskind of cool so we kind of had
that down which was we now wereable to flatten the shoe with
(17:58):
these new toe and heel counters.
But then if you flat in regularcask and shoe you're still gonna
end up with creases and that'snot going to be very pretty so
we had to solve a we internallycalled the creasing problem and
that's where you know againworking with our factory the the
idea of using buffalo leathercame in and buffalo leather is
naturally much more elastic thancalf skin. So if you do flex it
or if you do bend it it comesback to life It doesn't doesn't
(18:23):
necessarily lose shape orcrumble or crease the way that
cap skin does. So when youcombine those two those two
materials the toe and heelcounters and the buffalo leather
we were able to come up withthis product of a leather shoe
that completely can collapse youcan pack it super tight in a
suitcase we have some chips andsome videos obviously on that
campaign page you can seeexactly what I'm talking about.
(18:45):
And it comes back to life whenyou get to your destination you
can just you know unwrap them oron unfold them or uncollapse
them as we say and you wouldhave never known they just had
them thrown in your in a darkcorner of your carry on luggage
or in your backpack or whateverit is so it's a pretty cool
innovationand do you then get to pattern
(19:06):
this polymer or is it somethingthat no no okay,
I I wish I was a scientist inthat way but no this is a this
is something that you couldprobably get I'm not actually I
shouldn't say that. It may bejust our supplier that that
created this I'm not 100% sure.
But umbut it's innovation that is very
(19:28):
makes this particular campaignI'm very interested in it I've
got to say becauseexactly it's it's for sure
innovation and you know whatmost of you I guess in theory
doesn't have that many uses, orat least for sure most other
brands would never use it likethis because the whole idea of a
Tonio Cantor's issue tocompletely keep it shape and to
prevent it from collapsing orfrom folding. So yeah, but I
(19:51):
mean this is something a littlebit different.
For people that had thewanderlust Firebird you know, at
least travel a lot before. WeAnd travel, we would maybe get
on the planes in our dress shoesor we would just like you say
get on the extra carry onluggage just to accommodate this
fix. But you know, now havingsomething like this could be a
real game changer for especiallylike the, you know, the
(20:13):
corporate or the executivethat's doing a lot of
travelling. Right. And there'sanother way to look at a lot of
guys go for a couple of days ona business trip, and you know,
you're travelling your dressshoes and your suit. And then
you may want to have like, anextra pair of sneakers to go out
or night or just, you know, towalk around the city when you
have some free time. So yeah,make it a lapse, collapsible
version of our sneakers as well,just for that purpose. Or if you
(20:34):
go to the gym in the morning,you know, you don't want to take
up too much space in your inyour gym bag or your backpack
when whatever it is. There's alot of a lot of uses.
I'm loving this. I'm loving it.
So it's on the website. Now.
We've got by the time thispodcast goes out the end of
October there will there abouts.
Absolutely. And where are wewith the figure that we need to
(20:56):
hit?
We already passed that figurewithin the first like 30
minutes. Oh. So we're way beyondthat. We're at about $205,000 if
I'm not mistaken now so we'llprobably in this campaign
somewhere in the 250 to $300,000range, which is, which is pretty
nice. Pretty exciting for us.
(21:17):
I see you do a TED talk on howto do Kickstarter campaigns. And
you got the formula down.
Thank you. Yeah, I'd like this.
I'd like to think we're prettydecent at this. You know, we've
also been running we've been offa Kickstarter since 118. But
we've been running crowdfundingcampaigns aren't on our own
crowdfunding platform that webuilt. We did that in 2019 and
2020 as well. So right, okay, sothis is different. We've been
(21:40):
doing this for a little bit.
Nice. Okay, great. Well, asidefrom the campaign for what plans
you have for the near future,have you kind of gotten over any
pandemic bumps that might havehit supply chain, perhaps you
can talk about any issues? Yeah.
Now we've had we've had plentyof pandemic bumps. In general,
you know, the idea of peoplesitting at home and not going
(22:02):
out was not the best for fordresser sales in general. But
thankfully, we came out and thisyear has been pretty good,
especially compared to lastyear. Supply Chain wise, we got
very we're very fortunate lastyear in 2020 that our main
factory was an original part ofItaly that was greatly affected
by shutdowns, they shut down fora couple of months. But overall,
(22:25):
they were still able togenerally deliver there are a
few delays but nothing nothingmajors. I'd like what you're
seeing coming out of Asia rightnow. Obviously the cost of
freights a little bit higher andthere's there's a lot of added
added expenses and headaches inthe supply chain and
logistically but but overall Ireally can't complain too much
(22:46):
are you know, we are fat, ourmain factory especially as
they're really our realpartners. And you know, we had a
very nice sense of camaraderiethat we're gonna help each other
out as much as possible to getthrough through those tough
times because as you canimagine, it was difficult for
them not just for us. So we havewe have really good partners on
(23:06):
the supply side.
I mean, this is kind of where Iguess you lean on those
relationships like that havebeen nurtured over the years,
many years of like your mom anddad being in the business as
well. This is kind of what Iguess you have that a lot of
many other brands don't have, ina way.
Absolutely. And you know, I didtake the time to speak to a lot
(23:26):
of my competitors in 2020 sincewe all had a little bit of
downtime and that was really myfocus of the year to become
friendly with as many people inthe industry as possible
especially on the direct toconsumer side. And it really
made me realise exactly whatyou're saying that that we're
we're very fortunate to have therelationships that we have,
because a lot of a lot of ourcompetitors really had
(23:48):
difficulties not just becausetheir factories may have shut
down because in a lot of cases,they may not have been the most
important client for thosefactories and they never really
had those strong bonds are theyworking through an agent or the
owners to necessarily have thedirect relationships with the
factories and they had anemployee working with them the
employer was no longer there. Sothere are a lot of factors that
(24:09):
really really hurt their supplychains and we really never felt
any of that. And you know, youinvoke evoke my parents one more
time over there and the onething that they always taught me
is that a good reputation goesfar but a bad reputation goes
further so working withsuppliers you know, to the shoe
world's very small like it'svery difficult that you don't
(24:30):
know someone who knows someonewho knows your suppliers in
almost any case in almost anycountry. So when when you do
wrong by them, pretty much thewhole industry knows. So we've
always made it a very big pointto do by do right by all of our
suppliers. And this goes backagain, you know, 30 plus years
which is why I was able to starta smart for the relationships
(24:52):
that we have and go back toItaly after so many years that
my parents had left the doinggreat. Do you ever think about
doing collaboration Now thatyou're in this kind of nice
community with some of yourcompetitors, I guess some of
them might be friends. Now, doyou ever have any kind of
crossovers?
Yes, actually Funny you shouldask. We have we have it with a
(25:15):
lot of my competitors. We'veI've, I mean, we speak almost
regularly at this point, we'redoing a collaboration with a
sock brand, not necessarily ashoe brand, should be coming out
soon. And we're doing and thisI'll know, I'll have more
details by the end of the year.
But hopefully by early nextyear, there will be a very big
collaboration between us and oneof our main competitors. You
know, but that's to bedetermined, and hopefully
(25:38):
everything finalises the waythat I expect that it will, but
well, we have we have a lot ofthat coming down in the
pipeline, as well ascollaborations with with some
artists that we've also builtrelationships with over the last
year or so. So Oh, great. I havea lot in the works in terms of
collaborations.
Now artists in Italy, artists inMiami, can you lend us
(25:59):
artists in the US, US andCanada?
Okay. All right, great. Well,maybe in the new year, we'll
have you back on and we canperhaps talk about some of those
collaborations and celebratethose. That'd
be amazing. Thank you.
Well, in the meantime, Acemarks.com a place to go to not
only check out the campaign, butalso these wonderful hand
handcrafted dress shoes, andsneakers. And, Paul, I'm gonna
(26:22):
ask you a question. I'veliterally just come to front of
mind. I do ask this we have acouple of people that come on
the show where especially ifthey've got ahead in the sneaker
world how how best Can you keepthe midsole clean on a white
midsole for a shoe? Because Iwalk pigeon toed and it's the
first thing that goes in theshoe or the mid soles Have you
got any kind of advice on that?
(26:43):
I have a few. A few pieces ofadvice for that one. Sphere by
i'm not mistaken has come outwith a product specifically to
clean that part of the shoe.
sneaker sphere Yeah, SAP HR. Andmore traditional method is using
toothpaste with fluoride thatworks. And some people use also
(27:04):
a mixture of baking soda withthat like a very, very slight,
slight, slight touch of whitevinegar. But you want to make
sure you don't get that on youruppers because that could damage
your uppers pretty quickly.
Yes, yeah, I think that's aproblem that I've had with a lot
(27:24):
of my stuff a bit too slapdashwith it. I always say sorry.
I was gonna say now you know,it's very funny is that you
know, that's that's a verycommon issue that we hear. And
so a lot of people asked us tomake sneakers, less sneakers
with white soles and moresneakers with gum soles or black
soles. But Funny enough, everytime we come out with those,
just the white soles outsellthose.
(27:46):
They look the same. But right Ido have a bunch of black
sneakers with black metals forthat exact reason. But they're I
don't think the women like them.
I mean, my girlfriend certainlyhates him. She says these are
these are not anything that youcan go out in. They're just too
casual for smartware they're toosmart, casual. It's it's kind of
thatwe're kind of in between. Yeah,
right. That's exactly right. Andactually someone was, I think it
(28:09):
was my wife maybe my wife maybeone time I wore a pair of our
black sneakers with a blackmidsole and she said I look like
a waiter.
Well, they said that aboutGeorge George Lazenby and look
at him now he's strong. He'sgetting all the headlines.
Listen. I'm off on a tangent.
Paul, thanks so much for yourtime. And well done. Congrats on
(28:31):
having a wonderful product forall of us to enjoy and good luck
with the Kickstarter campaign.
We'll be certainly getting onthe back of that.
Thank you, Peter. Appreciate it.
Thank you very much for havingme today.
Already. How about that? Thankyou Paul. The website once again
(28:54):
Ace marks.com is the place togo. And if you want to check out
the show notes, more articles onfashion, travel lifestyle, etc.
It's www dot menswear. style.coUK. If you're interested in
coming on the show, maybe tellus about your brand and your
journey. Then you can email ushere at info at menswear.
style.co.uk Okay, thanks forlistening, and until next time,
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