Daniela Catraia is an architect by training, but instead of designing houses, she uses her creativity to create the first shoe brand in the Algarve, that has its own name.
So far it has only launched two collections, Autumn/Winter 2015 and Spring/Summer 2016, but its shoes, with a conceptual and minimalist language, in a contemporary casual and sporty register, have already paraded at Moda Lisboa, at the feet of dummies of the Portuguese brand «SAYMYNAME».
Daniela Catraia was born in Portimão and studied Architecture at the University of Évora, but the Fashion area has always fascinated her. In the year he was working on his master's thesis, and in view of what he knew to be “the lack of opportunities in architecture”, he decided to simultaneously enroll in a shoe design studio course at the Lisbon School of Design. With the results obtained after the training, he felt motivated to take a risk and created his own brand.
Architecture continued to be an inspiration and the brand "Daniela Catraia" it ends up being a combination of all these influences – design, architecture and fashion – through the exploration of new materials and ways of coordinating them, with solutions to create a high level of comfort and style.
In its collections, strong lines stand out, where the geometry and rigidity of the cuts create new structures in platforms and high heels, designed with angles inspired by its basic architectural training. Technological materials contrast with the nobility and detail of natural materials, cow and calf skin, sometimes with patterns.
The Algarve fashion designer was one of the guests at Beta Talk this June, in her hometown of Portimão. And why did this architect choose to become a shoe designer? «Fashion has always been an area that attracted me. And shoes, for most women, are an object of desire," explained Daniela, eliciting a cheerful comment from one of the men in the audience: "Oh, if they are!…"
Sharing her entrepreneurial experience with the assistance, Daniela Catraia said that “things evolved in a simple and intuitive way”.
«I finished the course at Lisbon School of Design and went to S.João da Madeira, which is one of the two big centers in Portugal for footwear. I contacted many factories, until I found the one I thought would be the one that could give an answer to what I wanted. My brand is associated with small productions, it's almost an author's brand, so it couldn't be produced in a factory dedicated to large quantities. But it also couldn't be in a craft factory that didn't know how to work with the technological materials I use», he explained.
Having your shoes an "irreverent look", what is the target audience of the Algarve brand? «She is the mature, cosmopolitan woman, who likes fashion, values accessories and different pieces. She is also the woman who likes to travel, who frequents spaces where architecture and fashion intersect," added the shoe designer.
But, in a universe where there are so many and so diverse footwear brands emerging, how do you manage to brand "Daniela Catraia" assert yourself and survive? “It makes sense to create something when you have a differentiating look. In the case of my shoes, I took a piece of comfort, normally associated with my grandmother's shoes, and I combined that with an irreverent design and different materials».
Daniela admits that it is necessary to «educate the public's taste, give time for people to look at something different and start using it». Also “it is not easy for a shoe store or boutique to bet on a shoe for the medium/high segment and which is not cheap, from a brand that is still little known”.
But the path is literally walking. So, from your first collection, Daniela Catraia it sold 400 pairs of shoes, and many of those first sales were achieved by going, "with a huge suitcase full of shoes, from door to door, in contact with stores that I thought fit the spirit of the brand".
For the current collection, Spring/Summer 2016, and after the good reactions of its customer stores, several references in the fashion and women's press and in specialized blogs, «we kept sales, but for fewer stores, which ordered more pairs from us» .
Currently, shoes from the Algarve brand «Daniela Catraia» are sold in ten and a half of top stores in Lisbon, Porto, Coimbra, Leiria, Famalicão, Caldas da Rainha, Aveiro and Cascais. In the Algarve, there are two stores selling them: Catwalk, on Rua Vasco da Gama, in Faro, and CL Sapataria, on Rua do Comércio, in Portimão.
But the brand “Daniela Catraia” it also has its online store, where currently there are even balances from the previous collection in progress.
The designer, who maintains her geographical division between Portimão, where she lives and works, and S. João da Madeira, where the factory that produces her shoes is located and whose work she insists on following closely, already has a new collection in production. , Autumn/Winter 2016. But still this summer there will be news, as Daniela Catraia revealed at first hand, in Beta Talk last Thursday: leather goods will be introduced, a collection of handbags, as a complement to the shoes.
And for the future? "I would like to make this my way of life and my business for life," confessed Daniela.
And who knows if the good relationships and the partnership that “Daniela Catraia" established with the Portuguese SAYMYNAME, whose creations are sold in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and are frequently published in the Asian media, won't it be able to open, also for the Algarve brand, the doors of international markets?
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