On Dec. 4, Sneex will be honored with the Launch 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 brand came to life and aims to empower women with more comfortable footwear.
Debuting a new business in 2024 feels a little different for Sara Blakely, who last launched the Spanx intimates brand in 2000 and built it into a market leader valued at $1.2 billion as of 2021, when Blackstone acquired a majority stake.
“When I started Spanx, there was no social media. The internet was just becoming a thing,” Blakely recalled. “To get anybody to know about my product, I was standing on department store floors eight to 10 hours a day for four years straight, telling 40 women a day and hoping that those 40 women would tell five friends.”
Now, the entrepreneur is leveraging the power of online platforms to bolster her new Sneex luxury shoe brand, which began selling direct to consumer in August. And it’s certainly gained attention, landing on Oprah’s Favorite Things list for the holidays and garnering celebrity fans that include Gayle King, Jane Fonda, Reese Witherspoon and Hoda Kotb.
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But with that bright spotlight also came many opinions on social media. “Some people love it. Some people don’t. Some people need to get used to it,” Blakely said.
And ultimately, she added, those conversations are a good sign. “When people have strong reactions, it means I’ve that done something disruptive and innovative. For people to have that much emotion around something and start a conversation, I don’t mind it at all. I completely embrace it.”
With Sneex, Blakely has introduced a new footwear silhouette she’s dubbed a “hy-heel” that merges an athletic sneaker with a stiletto. The collection — which is made in Spain with luxurious napa leather and Italian mesh — so far consists of three styles retailing for $395 to $595.
The brand was in development for roughly nine years. Though interestingly, a hybrid shoe wasn’t the initial plan.
Blakely, who struggles with foot pain, first set out to create a more comfortable stiletto for women. “There are so many things in our day-to-day life that are rapidly iterating and evolving. But the high heel has had a pretty traditional construction for a long time without much change,” she said.
But after four years of no progress — and continued resistance from factories in Europe — Blakely hit a wall. “I was just about to throw in the towel and I remember saying, ‘I just want my high heel to be as comfortable as my sneaker.’ Then a light bulb went off, and I decided to change direction completely,” she said.
She made her first prototype by cutting up a sneaker in her closet and attaching it to one her classic stilettos. From there came the difficult process of finding a manufacturer. Blakely said most factories she met with in Spain and Italy knew how to make heels or sneakers but not both; however, she persisted in her search because she wanted to offer an alternative to luxury heels, something made with fine craftsmanship out of premium materials.
Challenging the status quo is familiar territory for Blakely, who faced similar hurdles with Spanx while working with North Carolina’s male-owned textile factories. “A quarter of a century later, I felt like I was back in the same position, still fighting that fight to convince people to evolve their ideas — and evolve them in the name of comfort,” she said.
Fate finally prevailed, leading her to a factory in Spain. “The factory owner happened to go to Florida State University and graduate the same year I did, which was like divine intervention,” said Blakely. “He felt connected to me and became willing to help me make the shoe.”
Sneex aims to solve three pain points for women: relieve squeezing in the toes, provide more stability and support in the heel, and take pressure off the ball of the foot by redistributing the weight.
“The fashion industry for so long has been focused on how we look, and I care about how we feel — and I don’t think it needs to be mutually exclusive,” said Blakely. “A big part of why we’ve had to put up with pain for so long is because the majority of people making what we wear aren’t wearing them and aren’t experiencing it. I believe that if they experienced it, there’d be a higher motivation to change the feeling.”
And she’s not alone in wanting an alternative. Since launching, Sneex has outperformed expectations, selling out of multiple SKUs. And Blakely noted that in its first 24 hours, the brand sold a pair of shoes in every state in the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii.
Some of her early customers are female entrepreneurs and executives, who are showing up on conference panels in Sneex heels. “It doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Blakely. “I think that women in the business world really want a [new type of] heel.”
As for what’s driving her personally with this new business, Blakely (a mom to two kids) brings it back to her family and sending a message to the next generation. “My daughter is now 8, and I think about her a lot, about wanting to be an example to her that women don’t have to compromise, that they should dream big, and that beauty does not have to be pain,” she said.
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.
