FNAA 2024 Designer of the Year Edgardo Osorio Wants to Spread Happiness – One Step at a Time
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On Dec. 4, Edgardo Osorio will be honored with the Designer of the Year award at the 38th annual FN Achievement Awards. Below is an article from the magazine’s Dec. 2 print issue about how the Aquazzura founder and creative director continues to build momentum around the brand with new store openings, collaborations and a constant presence on the red carpet.
Happiness is a serious matter for Edgardo Osorio.
In a conversation with the Aquazzura founder, one finds that the term permeates every aspect of the business he launched 12 years ago and that has since drawn an increasing number of customers and A-list clients – from pop culture royalty like Beyoncé and Rihanna to actual royals like HRH the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton. It can be found in the brand’s mood-boosting strappy sandals, fancy platforms and pumps with a twist. The same feeling inspired the launch of new categories, from bags to tableware, and was imbued in the arty store concepts of Aquazzura’s ever-expanding retail footprint.
Rather than using strategies tabled out meticulously, Osorio is guided mainly by instinct and the pursuit of those “good vibes.”
“The beauty of being an independent company is that I choose what I want to do because I like doing it. It’s not about money: it’s about having fun,” he told FN, dialing from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he landed to cut the ribbon of one of Aquazzura’s new stores.
This year, the brand pushed on the retail pedal, adding 10 directly operated units in key locations, from resort destinations such as Saint-Tropez and Marbella to new markets like India via an outpost in New Delhi. A strong focus was put on the Middle East, with new doors in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and additional Aquazzura units bowing soon in Dubai and Qatar. Osorio believes the market is full of potential — and local customers have been loyal to the brand for years by purchasing shoes while traveling to Paris or London.
“We’re looking to be as vertically integrated as we possibly can,” said Osorio. “We still have wonderful partnerships and work extremely well with the likes of Saks and Mytheresa and multibrand retailers, so we’re consolidating our relationships with these key accounts. But at the same time, we’re really focusing on our own direct channels.”
Product development follows a similarly dual plan. In a quest to differentiate the assortment from the over 300 top retailers that carry his brand, Osorio often engages in collaborations offered exclusively at Aquazzura boutiques or its online store. For one, this year he partnered with longtime friend and Spanish digital entrepreneur Alex Rivière on a capsule collection, taking their personal bond to a new level.
That kind of authentic connection is at core of his approach to tie-ups, which over the years have seen him work with players hailing from different industries, ranging from Swarovski and de Gournay to Dr. Barbara Sturm and Begüm Khan.
“To be completely honest, I’ve never had a collaboration strategy in my life. It’s instinctive and always about a friendship. I like to work with people I admire,” said Osorio. “If I like something, I want to share it with people or, in this case, with my clients. So if I find something interesting, I hope that they’ll like it, too.”
As for future plans, his wish list is equally diverse. “I would actually love to do a collaboration with H&M. That’s on my bucket list. But I would also like to do a collaboration with Chanel. So there you go, both extremes,” he said with a laugh. In the same spirit, he joking added he’s “already working on, like, 15 different collaborations” for next year.
More seriously, Osorio promised that 2025 is going to mark a turning point for the company, teasing it will open a new phase of growth “way beyond shoes.”
“It’s the year where I really want to sell Aquazzura as a lifestyle brand. We’re no longer going to be just a shoe and accessories brand. I want to sell you a dream. And Aquazzura is the dream of happiness,” he said. To this end, the designer praised the likes of Ralph Lauren and Tom Ford, “people who were able to create their own vision of the world and were able to make it so inspiring and so convincing that it became a style.”
Osorio himself said he tries to work with purpose. “My job is not designing shoes; my job is to make people happy with everything that I do. And I want to communicate that. I hope that when customers come to us, they feel that happiness.”
Pressed to offer a little taste of what’s to come, Osorio revealed the brand will launch its first venture in the food and beverage arena, opening an Aquazzura bar in the iconic garden of Hotel de Russie in Rome. The permanent location, which will operate roughly from April to end of October, will be customized with Aquazzura Casa interiors and be a specialized tequila bar. “We’re collaborating with different tequila companies and making customized alcohol especially for us, with limited editions and customized cocktails,” teased Osorio, who believes the project will open the doors to more ventures in real estate and interiors.
These worlds have always fascinated the designer since childhood, as he admitted he “went for fashion but I could have been an interior decorator as well.”
“I love it so much: if I ever stopped working in fashion, I will probably do interiors and design hotels and real estate places. I love even designing furniture — it’s a side passion of mine,” he said. No wonder he gradually expanded Aquazzura’s world to include home décor and tableware starting from 2020.
Curious by nature, Osorio draws inspiration from many other places in his work. He acknowledged his luck in being able to travel for seven to nine months around the world, meeting people from different cultures and touring temples as much as street markets. Art is another big influence in his work, as he enjoys visiting artists’ studios and collecting contemporary art pieces.
“As a designer, you need to be informed of everything that’s happening around you,” he said. “It’s all about the cultural zeitgeist: You need to feel the moment, put that into your work and offer people something that’s going to move them for that specific moment in time.”
He talks from experience. Through the years he was able to intercept women’s desires in shoe-land and initiate trends. Asked about the major turning points of his career, Osorio mentioned being caught off guard at a fashion show in Milan in the early stages of his company and seeing “half of the front row in our shoes.” Other highlights have been the success of best sellers like the Christy flat and the Wild Things fringed sandals, which he defined as “probably my two favorite shoes I’ve ever designed.”
“They were part of a moment in time and they were so big,” Osorio recalled. “I remember when we sold more than 500,000 pairs of the Christy flats — it was such a moment. Never in a million years could I have imagined that the shoe could become such a phenomenon. It was copied by more than 62 companies in the United States alone. When a shoe arrives at that level — and it was everywhere, from the high street to the flea market — obviously, it’s annoying, but at the same time, it’s so humbling. It means you’re really doing something right, that it’s resonating with people.”
Twelve years in and this is still the secret behind Aquazzura’s success, according to the designer. “For me, product is king. It’s not about marketing or doing crazy things on Instagram. … It’s about having a beautiful product that’s well made, that’s comfortable, that has a good quality and that the customer wants to come back for. I don’t do ‘quiet luxury,’ but I think that is quiet luxury in a way: The product sells itself and speaks for itself.
“I always say we’re a happy little niche, in the sense that we’re not a mega brand that needs to cater to everyone and every taste,” he continued. “We have a point of view, whether you like it or you don’t, and not everybody needs to like it, which is OK. We cater to our clients and what they’re looking for when they come to us.”
Customers’ needs have evolved through the years, and the designer adapted to the changes by strongly expanding his brand’s offering, multiplying style iterations and heel heights. “When we started and first [boomed] in the market, it was three shoes. It was fantastic, but also very scary, because when those two or three shoes stop selling, then you have a problem,” he recalled.
“Now, because of that learning experience, [I want] a woman coming into Aquazzura [to] find something fabulous and something well-designed for every moment of her life, whether it’s a flat to go to work or to pick up her kids to school or a beautiful pump to be sexy for a dinner,” he continued. “[No matter] if a woman has 20 pairs of shoes or 300 pairs of shoes, there are five shoes she lives in until they break, and I want to be in those shoes.”
And for those few occasions where Osorio hits a creative rut, two solutions come in handy: swimming (after all, there’s a reason why he called the brand Aquazzura) and dancing.
“I need to dance for, like, five hours and sweat it off and get it out of my system,” said Osorio. “Dancing reconnects you with your soul. It’s something so powerful and so liberating. People think I love to party and that I’m a party person. No, I love to dance. It’s very different. I can be dancing alone in my living room, at a party with 300 people or with the children from an orphanage in Rwanda, and I will be equally as happy. It brings me so much joy and I try to bring that joy into my work.”
For 38 years, the annual FN Achievement Awards — often called the “Shoe Oscars” — have celebrated the style stars, best brand stories, ardent philanthropists, emerging talents and industry veterans. The 2024 event is supported by sponsors Listrak, Marc Fisher, Nordstrom and Vibram.
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