Level Shoes bets on the US: opening a store in Miami

From Dubai to Miami, with a one-way ticket. In spite of complicated times, with Donald Trump's constant changes of direction on duties, the counter-measures put in place by China and the EU's 'bazooka' on American products, the multi-brand brand dedicated to footwear Level Shoes is betting on the United States. This marks the first investment in the US by the Emirates group Chalhoub, to which it belongs.

Elisa Bruno, ceo of Level Shoes since 2020 after a career in luxury brands such as Burberry and Zegna, tells us: 'We believe that the United States is a market with great potential,' Bruno explains, 'on which we will first land with e-commerce, with a logistical base and dedicated staff on site. We will start at the end of May, with 45 brands. And then, at the end of 2027, we will open a 2,000 square metre shop in Miami, in the Bal Harbour shopping mall where there is the highest productivity rate per square metre in the country'. That it is a high-risk gamble is obvious, but the desire to grow the brand is great: 'The US is our fifth largest market and cross-border sales, although the numbers are still small, have recorded triple-digit growth. The fact of starting with the opening of a logistical base, in order to better understand the market and intercept trends, will allow us to better analyse the situation in the light of the duties that will be imposed, on which there is still little clarity, in order to be prepared'.

Level Shoes started out in 2012 as a floor in the Dubai Mall dedicated to footwear. The change of pace came in 2020, when the Chalhoub group decided to invest in it to make it an international brand: today the brand is present in the Dubai Mall a space of about 9 thousand square metres, where it houses 300 international brands, half of which are made in Italy. Some brands have their own monobrand boutiques in the space: in October, the renovated Miu Miu store opened, while in May it will be the turn of the Zegna store (the brand will show in Dubai on 11 June).

Over time, Level Shoes' offer has expanded considerably: 'We always work with the big international brands, and we do this in a coordinated manner with companies, but we have also introduced brands that do not have a history related strictly to footwear, such as Brunello Cucinelli or Ermenegildo Zegna. We do a lot of scouting - at Pitti, at Milan Fashion Week and at White - and we have enriched our offer with niche brands, such as Santoni or Golden Goose, and emerging ones such as Edhèn Milano'.

The revenues of Level Shoes (80% footwear; 20% accessories. The Chalhoub group does not communicate recent turnover figures, ed.) are almost balanced between women's sales - which are increasing in the premium segment - and men's and have managed to grow in a complex historical moment for luxury and especially for the wholesale channel: "The strength of a multibrand is that the customer finds something there that he would not have found elsewhere. But this format, especially if like ours it is a full price business, requires continuous investment, in buying but also in services". Among those offered by Level Shoes are personalisation, personal shopping and even super-fast delivery, for now only in Dubai. This care for the service, the offer and the customers, says Bruno, is also done in the digital channel: "We are all digital driven," explains the ceo, "and so we decided to invest in the App: we built an internal team that allows us to be very agile and has allowed us to connect, also through social media, with a very young community of consumers. The results have been encouraging: "The digital channel weighs 30% of total sales, but if we make an assessment on a like-for-like basis, and therefore considering only those brands that sell both online and offline, the percentage rises to 50%".