He climbs up to 4900 euros for crocodile boots

It is a creator of shoes of luxury, less known than Michel Perry or Pierre Hardy. With especially the antithesis of those anchored in fashion collections, proposed by all the brands of luxury. The Delage Paris company, created just twenty years ago, managed to impose on a niche: the shoes of timeless style combining elegance with comfort: of shoes to the richelieux, passing through the "ghillies", a flat model or small heels laces adorn of PomPoms of leather. Feature: great choice of colours and materials in which these luxury shoes can be made to the application.

Delage, whose workshop is installed 10 kilometres of ferns (Ille-et-Vilaine), the ancient capital of the French with novels shoe, is a specialist in exotic peausseries, crocodile, lizard and especially shagreen, that it is the only one to offer. Average price of models: 700 euros. He climbs up to 4,900 euros for crocodile boots. "Our clients come mainly to this very broad offer." 30 choose materials or different colours of our collections. "Manufacturing demand then in three to four weeks," explains Véronique Leremboure, Director of the shop of the gardens of the Palais Royal in Paris, the only one in France.

House has opened its first "corner" in New York in Yuta Powell, on Madison Avenue. While previously, Delage was almost not sold for export, 60 of its customers are foreign, American, English or Japanese. A reputation built on word-of-mouth, because the mark is not advertising. Its clientele is very true, as this artist living in the Bahamas which commissioned him for 20 years about 50 pairs per year. Always the same model, moccasins found in lizard, crocodile or other, often coloured. It has nearly a thousand. "It is a true collector with the models that it buys," resumed the Director. There is also the wife of a German industrialist who comes twice a year at the shop with his guards the body and especially his seamstress, who has in Pocket tissue samples of all his outfits to match the shoes she order a quarantine of pairs per season. Lauren Bacall, Catherine Deneuve have also cracked for this discrete brand, and more recently Valérie Lemercier who bought red boots.

Sales on the rise

Today Delage sells approximately 1,500 pairs per year but will move into high gear to save its know-how. Because if the shop is beneficial, with about 10 of net income to sales of 550,000 euros, his workshop, reached, just balance, with a turnover of close to EUR 1 million. To ensure profitability, this unit led by Yves Martin (heir of the founding family of the JB Martin brand) should rise to at least 5,000 pairs per year. But it is poised to lose control of one of its major donors of order, Christian Louboutin, who wishes to gradually outsource its production to the Italy. "We absolutely must find new clients, including abroad", explains Didier Wirth who wishes to develop the brand in the United States, by opening of new "corners" in the major cities such as Chicago, San Francisco or Washington. The former boss of Chemistry (founded Isochem) holds 60 of the capital of Delage, originally launched by his wife, Barbara Wirth, interior designer, alongside the Primrose Bordier, extinct stylist.

Increase turnover does not seem an impossible bet. Despite the crisis, the luxury Shoemaker saw its sales advance 10 in 2009, with a goal to 600,000 euros in 2010. "Our customers delaying large purchases, but not those of shoes, is the leader. The cold has also helped us.

And then the House saw others. Launched with the know-how of the elders of the Harel workshop, it manufactured 41,000 pairs of shoes per year with 50 employees prior to his first record in 1998 due to the judgment of a Chanel contract. It restarts with a workforce reduced to 9 persons and then loses another big client, mark Mancini, forcing shareholders to the Refinance in 2007.