EXCLUSIVE: Nodaleto Opens First Store in Miami
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Paris-based luxury footwear brand Nodaleto has set up shop in Miami, opening its first boutique in the Design District during Art Basel.
In only a few years the brand — from cofounders Olivier Leone and Julia Toledano, daughter of Sidney Toledano, LVMH Fashion Group chairman and chief executive officer — has garnered a lot of buzz with its “Bulla Babies” mary janes. The shoes are instantly recognizable with their platform soles, chunky block heel and squared-off toe.
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“We are digital natives, Julia and I,” Leone explained via Zoom from Miami. “Even though it’s working really well with digital, we have to connect with our audience, try to make a permanent link and experience with our customers. But do it in our own way,” he said when asked why they are opening their own boutique.
Toledano sees a different way to reach their community of consumers. “I think as a designer I wanted to be able to say, ‘OK, now I’m mature enough to free myself from the design I created, to go into other directions and to provide to my customer a wider range of products.’
“That’s why this boutique,” she said, “but we are taking it slowly.”
Being a European brand, Miami might not seem the first place to debut a store but Toledano said the U.S. is one of the brand’s largest markets, both online and wholesale. “We do think U.S. customers are extremely different in the way they consume luxury,” Leone explained. “Americans are so free and open to mixing brands, it’s different than Europeans.”
While they admit to not spending a ton of time in Miami before now, they feel nostalgic from earlier decades of American pop culture — like “Miami Vice” or Gianni Versace on South Beach — and think the Magic City lines up with their footwear’s energy. “Miami as a brand is always playing with a fine line between good and bad taste. It’s a playground where you have people wearing The Row suits next to a girl in a thong,“ he said. “With Rollerblades,” Toledano chimed in.
Nodaleto labels itself “mischievous” in its Instagram bio, recently posting a mix of slick high fashion images of its glossy red block heels stepping on an American flag aluminum can, teasing the new store. “We play with irony, with like the shoe itself as a proportion. That can be seen as bad taste sometimes,” Leone admitted.
The creatives’ playful tongue-in-cheek nature comes through in their boutique, designed with architect Rafael de Cardenas. It plays with dual ideas, beginning with Space Age. “Stanley Kubrick, I’m sorry, we’re not really original because it’s something everyone loves,” Leone said with a laugh.
Second, “a colorful playground.” The space, at 88 NE 39 Street, includes a captivating white ceramic sculpture of a leg, that juts out from the wall; it pops against the blood red furnishings and carpet. Inspired by artist Alex Jones’ work, it’s right in line with a brand that thinks of itself more akin to the disruptive art world than the traditional fashion ecosystem.
“We want it to feel like a cozy and luxury retail experience. It was the balance of something warm, welcoming and modern,” Toledano added of the retail experience.
Their concept is not fixed — the pair said they could change it all or keep it depending on how it plays out post-opening, seeing the boutique as an evolving space, much like an art gallery.
“I really wanted to have the full Nodaleto experience in terms of product,” she said of the store’s assortment, a first chance for the designer to show her full range all together.
Toledano is diving into the Miami vibe, adding new items for the boutique’s customers by crafting versions of her shoes in metallics, bright hues and gloss treatments that match the mood of the city.
The brand is in 69-plus stockists globally and the pair are looking to add more product categories soon. As she matures, so does the brand — Toledano got engaged during the pandemic, channeling the event into her work by launching a bridal collection.
”For me, bridal has always been very kitschy,” she said, explaining that she naturally made shoes she would wear on her big day. “What is more between good and bad taste than bridal,” she said, planning to keep the collection as a core pillar, continuing to develop it.
“I design for others, for sure,” she said. “But I design first for myself, what I feel like I need.”
For fall 2021 she collaborated with Marc Jacobs Heaven, and she has another designer collaboration in the wings but cautioned she is only looking to partner where it really makes sense. “It needs to be the perfect match between two worlds,” she said.
So far, Nodaleto is self-funded by the duo and they see the Miami opening as just the start of their next chapter. More stores are planned over the next two years, beginning with Paris in fall 2023, followed by New York and Seoul in 2024.
“Miami is the first step of the playground,” Leone said.
