“Made with Love” / The Story of Piedàterre’s Venetian Slippers

Piedàterre’s Venetian slippers are the most stylish shoes you’ll ever wear. We met with co-owner Paul Deneve for a conversation on footwear, Venice and craftsmanship.

The classic Venetian slipper was born in Friuli north of Veneto (thus known also as “friulane”). Due to post-war necessity. Italian women used their home textiles and bicycle tyres to make new shoes when new materials were scarce. There’s a parallel to fellow Italian brand Gucci to be found here: the reason that Gucci has become known for its consistent use of bamboo was that after the war, not much else was available. But today, the bamboo handles on handbags have become a Gucci trademark, demonstrating that many great ideas are born out of material constraints.

In 1952, the first Piedàterre slipper was sold from a cart on the Rialto Bridge, but today they have two stores in Venice as well as an online shop. Paul Deneve is one of the co-owners (alongside film producer Stuart Parr) and the reason that the shoes now are more accessible. Formerly the chief executive of Yves Saint Laurent, and former vice president at Apple, Deneve has also managed a number of fashion luxury houses, including Courrèges, Nina Ricci, and Lanvin.

We met with him to discuss shoes, Venice, and the importance of being comfortable.

I’m very curious to learn more about your relationship with Piedàterre, acquiring and now managing it.

A determining factor was Covid. My business partner Stuart had already been looking at the brand for years, before Covid. And even before Covid, we had met up to talk about it, because – as I have experience from the world of fashion and luxury – he wanted some advice and some help. So, we discussed Piedàterre, but I was not at all, at the time, focused on this more than just helping him out. And then the pandemic happened, and it was a moment of rediscovering time and taking time to think about things we hadn’t had time to reflect on until then.

At that moment, Stuart suggested, “let’s spend some more time in Venice”, and when the lockdowns in Paris temporarily were opened and there were moments when you could travel, like in the summer of 2020 (before shutting down again). It was in these moments, when the world temporarily opened up, that I travelled to Venice and started spending time with him there. And it was a very different Venice from the one that I knew, crowded by tourists.

Looking at the brand, which I knew because my wife had bought me, probably already ten years before that, a pair which I had been wearing. But rediscovering it, and seeing the store, when most of Venice was empty. Most of the stores that were open did not have many customers, but in this tiny shop by the Rialto bridge, I saw people arriving, guided on FaceTime by someone who had recommended the store. Because they usually had trouble finding the store, as it’s a little bit hidden. And it wasn’t just one person, every day I saw people arriving guided on FaceTime, by friends. And I even saw people lining up at the store! While the rest of the stores were empty. I asked myself, what brings these people here, and now, making them want to buy these shoes? That’s how the uniqueness of it really set in.

And to give another example, when the store opened, the staff was very busy shipping the “online orders”, but “online” was an order that came in via e-mail or through a phone call or WhatsApp. It was wonderful to see! Refreshing to see, in comparison to bigger brands. It was very unique, and that’s how I came to this. And my partner didn’t have to do much to talk me into joining the adventure and to buy the company, which we did in May 2021.

Had you worked with him before?

No, I had not. I knew him socially; we didn’t see each other often but I had known him for a long time and thought that we were very complimentary. And then Stuart moved to Venice full-time, and I started to travel between Paris and Venice, nonstop. What was great about spending a lot of time in Venice – because I was there constantly almost the whole year of 2021, before the city slowly transitioned back in 2022 – was that it gave Stuart and myself an opportunity to get to know the locals, and to get to know many of the Venetian families. Wonderful people, whom it would have been harder to meet now, because now when you come to Venice, there’s so many people there again. And you have a good number of very cosmopolitan Venetians, living there and often going between Venice and Milan, or other places. During Covid, they were there. We had wonderful times with them, and I think that’s what brought this venture much, much closer to the city. It’s the people, really, the people that we got to know made us love Venice even more.

I was in Sweden during the pandemic, and our restrictions were more liberal. I had many friends going to Venice at that time, and they said it was like travelling in time, to a period before mass tourism.

The restaurants were closed and only hotels could offer dinner to their guests, and so Stuart and I would stay at the hotel and have dinner there, at the Gritti Palace Hotel, on their beautiful terrace on the Grand Canal. At night, it would just be Stuart and myself, all alone on this terrace, having dinner. Today, that’s unimaginable. It was unique.

Listening to you, I understand the connection between Venice and the brand, but how would you describe Piedàterre to someone who’s not familiar with it?

The history of our brand is very closely intertwined with the history of the city. It started outside of Venice, where these types of slippers were being made, by the people for their own use and to be sold to people living in Venice and the Veneto region. And it became part of the wardrobe of Venetian families and by extension the larger Veneto and northern Italy region, where everyone from parents to kids would wear Venetian slippers. And they would wear them for all occasions, but it would always be chic. It could be casually worn or worn with a tuxedo for special events. So, the first clients were Venetians, but the clientele grew, as people who came to Venice would buy them and bring them back home.

Our brand has kept its focus on the product from the very beginning, from selling it on the Rialto bridge before the first store opened, in a little stall a couple of days a week.

A couple of times a week, we drop off bags with the “uppers” of the slippers, together with the soles, at the homes of the women who make them. They hand-stitch the slippers at home, and then we pick them up, and so the original tradition is still there. Still today the slippers are made locally, by hand. I would say that this is very special, I would say that it’s made with love, as it’s made by people who really care about how it is made. And that’s also how we want to sell them to the people, either in our small store or in our larger store, opened in August 2021, in Campo Santo Stefano. There we have customers, women and sometimes women with their husbands, who sit there for 45 minutes or an hour, or even more, and they try on the different colours, and after a while the man as well will start trying them on. It’s so special because it’s so deeply intertwined with the city and how people dress there, how the product is made, and how it is sold as well. It has become a timeless product, really. We’ve made this product for a long time, we continue to make it, and we make no other products. It’s what we do.

I know the world you come from, and so I hesitate to ask this question. Walking around the central areas of Venice, you see the stores of brands such as Versace, Louis Vuitton, and Balenciaga. Brands that care more about hype than quality. And they are in the centre of the area most affected by mass tourism, it’s easy to connect the two phenomena. But Piedàterre appears different and more authentic, connected to the history of Venice but at the same time very contemporary, as it rejects over-production and mindless consumption. Fashion has become so unfashionable, and your product resonates with this, as it’s more about a sense of style.

I would agree with this, and I’ve stepped out of the fashion business for more than a decade. I was working there for a very intense period. And even then, during the sixteen years I worked in fashion, I saw it really evolve. When I started working, it was focused mainly on America, Europe and Japan. Brands like Gucci and Prada in the early 90s made 200 million dollars, and they didn’t do ten billion as they are doing now. It was a different scale.

What attracted me to fashion was the sense of beauty and creativity through the people making it, really. I loved working with Albert Elbaz or Coqueline Courrèges. It was about a passion for the client and a passion for the product, which really typified what attracted me most about this business. Indeed, you can say that some of that has been lost in brands now. That’s what I was thinking about during Covid, seeing brands like Piedàterre and realising that there are ways of doing it differently, while indeed being contemporary and not just stuck with a little, quaint product.

The beauty of our offer is that we have a selection of five shapes, in beautiful materials and amazing colours. People can really find what they want in our offer, and it can be very fashionable. Last year, Mary Janes were very fashionable, and we had been offering them for a long time. We saw a big boost in sales, not because we pushed the style, but because there was a strong interest in them, and we offer them in so many different colours.

I have shirts from Lavin and Saint Laurent that I’ve been wearing for fifteen years, and the Lanvin-shirt that I have on now is 18 years old! The quality was really good, maybe one button coming off but that’s easily mended. It feels timeless, and that’s what’s beautiful. But at the same time, you can innovate.

Our focus is just how it’s made. Craftsmanship for us means making the product better over time, but not necessarily cheaper to increase the margin profits. That’s not how we see it. When I started walking with them on a daily basis, in 2021, after three days I realised that my legs were hurting. Both Paris and Venice are very walkable. I loved the shoes, but I needed to wear them the way I live! And I’m not the only walker, in the past fifteen years, people have walked more and more, and that’s how the idea of the 10,000 steps a day came up, and this whole notion that when you can walk, you should. It’s good for you, it’s good for the environment. So, we reengineered the inner sole completely, while keeping the outside exactly the same. It took us 18 months to go through this process. And now, you can do your 20,000 steps in these shoes, every day, and look elegant or casual, as you prefer, while doing it. And that’s what I love; that we not only could do this but that we took the time to do so. This underlines how these slippers, around for such a long time, still are relevant today.

Something else that makes Piedàterre stand out, in a luxury market with constantly raised prices, is that your prices are so accessible. Paired with your inclusive sizing, the brand feels very welcoming.

We go from size 35 to 48. It works out very well in the stores, to not divide it into men’s or women’s. Feet have grown bigger over time, so that’s why we added size 47 and 48, and we introduced size 42S, which allows people with this size to have a narrow fit.

In my opinion, the shoe has a particular role in a person’s wardrobe. You can tell a lot about a person by their shoes, more so than through other garments and accessories. Why is this?

I agree but I don’t have a general theory of why this is. A good number of people have a certain costume when going through life. You have a few pieces that constitute a look, allowing you to get dressed in the morning without making too many choices. Coqueline Courrèges, the co-founder of the Courrèges brand, was always dressed in a white piqué coton and either long or short trousers. And her shoes, Mary Janes, could be in different colours, which shows that it’s through the shoes that you can add a personal touch, while keeping the rest very consistent over time. That’s one hypothesis.

In our case, and this goes back to what you said about pricing, what we’ve observed of people coming to our store and it’s like going into a Ladurée store, where they are tempted by so many different options and colours! All the potential. And with our pricing, they buy several pairs, which is great – you can have several versions of the same product, which then complete your look. As opposed to other accessories, shoes are – except for maybe at the beach or at home – essential. What’s your idea?

Sometimes when people change styles, they begin with what’s most obvious. The shoes are always the last step, and so the shoes reveal something deeper about the wearer, about who they used to be. This has been further enhanced by social media, where you don’t always see the feet. So, the shoes reveal your actual personality, your real sense of beauty or style.

But I’m also curious about your clients, who buys your shoes?

We have many return clients and a very strong local customer base, both Venetians and the whole region around Venice. We have also built up a loyal clientele from around the world through people visiting the city, but especially from areas like France, the States, and big cities. Sometimes people in their eighties who have been buying this product for 30 or 40 years! But also, people who pass by our store and buy their first pair, and for them it’s a real discovery, and then they come back and buy more. What unites most of our clients is a very strong appreciation of the product.

I have an example: there was a British man standing outside the store, during the film festival last year, and he told me he was there with his wife, who was trying on different pairs inside. He had been on holiday on the Amalfi Coast, when his Italian friends had been wearing Venetian slippers. So, he went online and found out that there are several brands making the slippers, and he ordered from many different brands, to compare the quality! Very methodological. His wife had tried them on, and Piedàterre were the best, and that’s why they were at the store now. His wife was buying a whole wardrobe of Piedàterre shoes! This shows that the love of the product is at the core of what we do.

Are you planning any news for the future?

We’re moving slowly. We work on colour and small tweaks. Basically, you will find the five shapes, and for spring/summer, we highlight lighter materials, like linen, satin, and canvas. Word of mouth drives our business. We’re not opening another 100 stores and we’re not planning a big campaign. In fact, we don’t do any advertising, we focus on our store and our products.