This is not a story about a girl from a French village who dreamed of becoming a professional tennis player all her life, but by the will of fate fell into fashion, as was the case with the author of the most popular print of 2020, Marine Serre. Amina Muaddi told her parents about her desire to work in the fashion industry from the age of nine. “It's all thanks to my mom. She was chic, with a large shoe cabinet, and she dressed me very well,”the girl told Vogue Arabia while sitting in one of the best restaurants in Paris in a Loewe jacket, Helmut Lang T-shirt, Rolex watch and boots of her own design. However, before receiving the "Shoe Oscar" - the Footwear News Achievement award in the category "Best Designer of 2019", Amina Muaddi changed several specialties and cities, having made her way from her native Romania to Paris.
The intermediate point was Italy, where Muaddi moved at the age of 16 to continue her studies. After graduating from high school in Brescia, she moved to Milan, where she studied marketing and communication in the field of fashion for three years at the European Institute of Design. All this was necessary in order to subsequently get a job in magazines with big names - L'Uomo Vogue and GQ in New York. And, apparently, in order to be disappointed in them: at the age of 26, Muaddi realized that being just an editorial assistant was not hers, she wanted to create fashion with her own hands, and returned to Italy, to the Riviera del Brenta region - the cradle of the country's shoe industry.
“While working with magazines, I was dissatisfied, and my boss at GQ - editor and star stylist - told me, 'If you feel like you want to have your own brand, then don't wait - do it.' He made me understand that for this you do not need to wait for the right moment - reaching a certain age or position in your career, - said Muaddi in an interview with The Business of Fashion. “Part of me felt that I should perhaps have studied design, not fashion communication. But I was worried that I wouldn't be able to become a designer if I didn't know how to draw. Probably, I just had to give up the traditional mentality and realize that I was a bigger designer than I thought, because I had a clear vision and understanding of what I really want."
1 of 10 Amina Muaddi Shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi Shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi Shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi Shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi Shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Shoes Muaddi © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi
During her year in the Riviera del Brenta, Amina Muaddi worked with a local artisan who introduced her to shoe suppliers and showed her how every element is created, from heel to box. Practical knowledge helped the girl to open in 2013 the Oscar Tiye brand, which produced shoes and sandals with imitation wings, as well as Mickey Mouse ears. Judging by the success of the company by the circle of celebrities who wear its product, then Muaddi's debut can be called successful: the list of clients included Nina Dobrev, Zoe Saldana, Eva Longoria, Britney Spears, Amber Valletta, Halle Berry and Hailey Baldwin, and long before that how she became Bieber.
Nevertheless, in May 2017, Oscar Tiye was closed: Instagram was replenished only with archived photos in order to sell the rest, and a “website offline” stub appeared on the site. Muaddi moved to Paris at the invitation of designer Alexandre Vautier to make shoes to highlight the ultrasexuality of his collections.
During this time, Amina Muaddi established herself as not only a shoe designer, but also a fashion influencer with invitations to the front rows of Valentino and Prada shows and girlfriends represented by Attico founders Georgia Tordini and Gilda Ambrosio, on the one hand, and model Tina Kunaki on the other. Vincent Cassel's wife was the heroine of the first advertising campaign of the new, this time the brand of the same name, Muaddi, which settled in France, but manufactures shoes in Italy. In the footage, Kunakey posed in pointed iridescent pumps with a distinctive element that would later make Amina Muaddi one of the most recognizable shoe companies in the world - a pyramid heel (or, as it is also called, a "martini glass").
Tina Kunakey in the advertising campaign of Amina Muaddi © instagram.com/aminamuaddi
However, the guiding star of the young brand was not Tina Kunaki, but Rihanna, who, having learned about him from her right hand Jalil Vivera, betrayed her previous shoe favorites - Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik (with whom, by the way, she collaborated). The collections of Amina Muadi, which, in addition to shoes with glass heels, include, for example, suede over the knee boots with straight heels and patent leather ankle boots with stiletto heels, have become the basis of the American singer’s wardrobe. And not only her: some clients switched to Muaddi from Oscar Tiye, and among the new ones were Kim Kardashian, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Dua Lipa, Solange Knowles and Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan.
1 of 9 Rihanna in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/badgalriri Hayley Bieber in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Gigi Hadid in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Kendall Jenner in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Rosie-Huntington Whiteley in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Queen of Jordan Rania in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Dua Lipa in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi Kim Kardashian in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/ aminamuaddi Kendall Jenner in Amina Muaddi shoes © instagram.com/aminamuaddi
A pool of female celebrities, coupled with an army of Instagram followers formed as a result of building a personal brand, brought Muaddi record numbers. According to The Business of Fashion, the company's sales in the last 12 months have exceeded $ 22.2 million - and this despite the average cost of shoes of $ 800, quarantine, during which the shoes with "holiday designs" are clearly not needed, and the lack of direct Internet sales (the Amina Muaddi brand is represented in stores and on the websites of Bergdorf Goodman, Lane Crawford, Harvey Nichols, Ssense, Browns and MyTheresa, as well as Aizel and TSUM).
Earlier, personal recommendation service Lyst concluded that Amina Muaddi's Gilda shoes were the second most in-demand product in the world in the fourth quarter of 2019. According to statistics, on average, they were searched 60,500 times a month, and the number of views of the brand as a whole increased by 73%. The experts emphasized that not only eminent clients and influencer status, but also the creation of a joint collection with Rihanna for her brand Fenty, which is part of the LVMH group, influenced the interest of buyers in many ways. In 2020, the experience of cooperation was repeated: sandals with a square toe and shoes with a large brooch adorned the feet of Bella Hadid, Laura Harrier, Lizzo, Irina Shayk and Paris Hilton, who participated in the Savage X Fenty lingerie show.
As the brand gains momentum, becoming global and replicated, Amina Muaddi deliberately reduces it. For example, realizing that the transparent version of Begum shoes is in high demand, she removed them from the fall collection. “We're the lucky ones - everyone wants our product,” the designer boasted. “But we don't want to give it to everyone. My client should feel that she has something luxurious, unique, such that not everyone can get hold of. " And he adds: “I went through a lot: situations when I had everything and when I had nothing. As you become familiar with both of these worlds, you understand what really matters. Money helps you find safety and comfort, but it definitely never brings happiness.”>