Independent Fashion Brand Zou Xou Shares What it’s Like to Run a Successful Business
In this episode I’m speaking with Katherine Theobalds, the founder and creative director of Zou Xou, which is a brand that’s focused on making shoes for women who dress for themselves.
Katherine and I had a fantastic conversation where we discussed:
- the process of marketing and selling to conscious consumers
- creating a small batch production approach to business
- being happy with limiting your growth as a small business
- marketing tips from the show Mad Men
ABOUT THE BRAND + DESIGNER
Zou Xou was founded 5 years ago. Each design in the collection is combined with high quality materials and old-school craftsmanship. The collections are small batch and every pair is ethically made in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Having grown up in Virginia, but spent a lot of time visiting her grandmother in Manhattan, Katherine considers herself half-New Yorker, and her career aspirations when she was younger could be summed up as…..moving to New York City and being fabulous.
Though she loved art and fashion, growing up in a middle class Black household with parents from an older generation, the message she received was that art and fashion were financially unstable paths that were to be avoided in favor of more practical careers.
So she put her dreams aside and settled on a degree in a hodgepodge of Social Sciences and Spanish language.
After college her love for design was reignited and she moved to New York City and enrolled in a fashion program. Now she’s running a successful shoe company , splitting her time between New York City and Buenos Aires and focusing on designing versatile footwear for women who consider practicality, comfort, and character key elements of good style.