Together, Natelle Baddeley, senior vice president of design, product development and merchandise strategy of Caleres, Angelique Joseph, senior vice president of design and product development at Caleres, and Jenny Olsen, chief marketing officer of Caleres, shared Naturalizer’s inclusivity strategy at the WWD x FN x Beauty Inc Women in Power event in New York in September.
Naturalizer has had almost 100 years as a purpose-driven brand, and Olsen told attendees that since its beginning in 1927, the brand has put women first. Today, Naturalizer has furthered its mission, and worked to spread an inclusive message, as well as emphasize comfort and diversity, the executives said. It all starts with the company’s majority women staff, which counts for 70 percent of its more than 9,000 employees.
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“We were actually the first company to make shoes specifically for women,” Olsen said. “Which sounds crazy by the way, but long back before the turn of the century they were making all shoes on a men’s form and they would just make it a little smaller and the company came in and changed all of that. We’re super proud to work for this company and to be here today.”
In their roles at Naturalizer, Olsen and Joseph are responsible for being stewards of the brand and continually reinterpreting its essence for a modern consumer. “We’re lucky because the essence of Naturalizer is crazy relevant almost 100 years later,” Joseph said. “I’ve loved all the conversation about purpose-driven brands…our purpose is to put women first. It starts with the shoe, then it’s about the woman herself, and ultimately it’s about all women.”
Shoes are the foundation, the Caleres team said, that move women through life, so it is vitally important to create footwear that understands their behaviors, wants and needs. Innovation has been a key component in the design of the brand.
“You have to truly understand women’s behaviors, the lifestyle changes, and to do that, the idea is to get into her head,” Baddeley said. “We approach it in a kind of multifaceted way. We’ll look at lifestyle changes or shifts at the moment. We’re all seeing this shift between a more relaxed and business attire and that blurred lines between the business attire and the leisurewear that we’re all merging together. Now it’s perfectly appropriate to wear casual or flat shoes or a sneaker to a business meeting. You still have power, you don’t need a power heel.”
Naturalizer’s recent campaign, called For Every, Woman, was very personal, shared Olsen, Joseph and Baddeley. The story highlighted important issues including sustainability and size inclusion and spotlighted outside voices as well as a diverse group of models who represented all sizes, colors, ages and backgrounds. Working on the campaign, they said, was impactful and empowering.
“What I love about the campaign and about how we think about exclusion at Naturalizer is it really is inclusive,” said Olsen. “We think about lifestyle and I’m really proud of that and we really look at things holistically. We start everything with the product itself and then we take that perspective around inclusivity and we thread it through every part of the consumers’ journey.”
This story was reported by WWD and originally appeared on WWD.com.
