Menswear Style Podcast

Danielle Wathes, Founder of Percy Stride / Goodyear Welt Footwear

April 30, 2020 Menswear Style Episode 54
Menswear Style Podcast
Danielle Wathes, Founder of Percy Stride / Goodyear Welt Footwear
Show Notes Transcript

Percy Stride is not another corporation or money-making machine, it's a family. A notable Northampton Brand, their handmade shoes are brought into life in a family run factory made up of a designer, photographer, copywriter, and friends. The brand is striving to become the best handmade English shoe brand around. After a 3-year footwear design degree at De Montfort University, Founder Danielle Wathes decided to put all the skills she had learnt to good use by starting her own footwear company, Percy Stride. There were only two main criteria she wanted to incorporate: English manufacturing and unique design aesthetic. Taking an active role in the business Danielle attended every show and met every client she could to help grow the brand to what it is today.

In this episode of the MenswearStyle Podcast we sit down and speak to Danielle Wathes, Founder of Percy Stride. Our host Peter Brooker speaks to Danielle about her graduate footwear design course at De Montfort University before starting her brand. She also worked with Virgin StartUp which offers business mentoring and help to entrepreneurs with the aim of accelerating their businesses. They also discuss Northamptonshire shoemaking, running a business during covid-19, the importance of social media and working with influencers.

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Hello, welcome to another episode of The menswear style podcast. I'm your host Pete Brooker and on this episode I'm going to be speaking to the CEO and founder of Percy stride Danielle Wallace, Percy stride, they are a men's shoe manufacturing company. Very nice elegant range of colours levers fit for any man looking to make a distinguished impression and it's a really fascinating story, Danielle started the brand, you know from the ground up. And, you know, she went to the right school, she got the right education, and did all the designs. We talked about that in the episode, you know, what's it take to get a shoe brand off the ground from scratch all of that to come? Make sure you're checking out her website though Percy stride.com and also whilst you're there, checking out menswear style.co.uk that's where we post all the links, all the show notes to all the podcasts as well as articles, features on lifestyle, travel competition, and a lot more. Make sure you're also following us on the social just type in men's wear style into your smartphone there will crop up somewhere. And if you want to get in touch with the show, then it's info at men's wear style.co.uk Okay. Here is that interview with Daniel office, CEO of Percy stride. It is my great pleasure to introduce the podcast Danielle office CEO and founder of Percy stride How you doing today? Danielle? I am very well how are you? I'm very good. Thanks. We were just discussing talking affair about how we're not doing too bad in the life of quarantine. It's, it's, you know, if you've got hobbies, and you know, you've got things to do that can keep you occupied, then, you know, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. I think it's people that are a little bit out of things to do. You know that get a bit silly. If you're a pretty established home hermit, like I already am, then it's kind of it's not too bad running a business even at times like these keeps me busy. So I'm just about getting there. I haven't gone completely bonkers yet. So that's something. Yeah. I've been saying to my girlfriend that these last three years working from home doing freelance writing, photography, podcast, whatnot. Like I've actually been training for this for the last few years of staining. And I'm a veteran. I'm a seasoned veteran now. So this is all amazing. Well, I've been I was kind of I have a part time job that I do running alongside the business for a bit of pocket money. And I coincidentally I just happened to finish work a week earlier than everyone else. So I'm about four weeks in on top of everybody else's three so right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nice. Thanks. Yeah, I've had a bit of extra bedding in time. But admittedly, I'm kind of a week crazier than that everyone else. Well, time will tell. Danielle, listen, thank you for taking time out of your day. We're really interested to learn about Percy stripe. But please, if you can give me an introduction to who you are, and how you started, Percy stripe. So, I am, and I am a graduate footwear designer. So it's it's difficult to say graduates It was such a long time ago now. But I studied footwear design at university and came out with a Bachelor of Arts degree in footwear design. The ultimate aim was always to start my own business, I am just that type of person. It might be some, you know, deep rooted control issues. Who knows, but that was always the ultimate aim. And so I thought coming out of university, I did a few other things and some internships and kind of getting an idea of what I wanted to do. And I just thought, Well, I'm in a position of kind of flexibility, I'm still living at home. Money's kind of just comes and goes for me, I'm in a pretty good position to go ahead and do it without anything. tie me down. So that is, in theory, what I decided to do, I just went completely headstrong into it, not knowing what the outcome was gonna be. Great Leap of Faith, as it were. How many people attend a shoe design degree. So the course is pretty small. And there's a lot of people that want to get on the course. But the the actual course that I went on was very niche. So I think we probably had about 20 people, which, for University is a really, really small class number. I mean, my roommates were in lectures of 200 300 people. So it was kind of just like, being back at school a little bit to be honest, the, the University setup was exactly like you would kind of have a college. So we kind of had three floors of kind of making designing shoes, all the different topics we were going to do. And we had three floors of the building, right? And really small class sizes. So we all got on pretty well helped each other out. It was a nice adjustment, actually. Yeah. And does everybody have the end goal of setting up their own business? No, no, not at all. I think. Obviously, I left University quite a while ago now. And I like to think I've grown a bit as a human. And, and you you, some people want to start their own businesses, some people just don't. And, and that's the differences between people. Anyway, in life. As far as I am aware, I am the only student of my year that decided to start from scratch and do their own business. But a lot of my classmates have gone on to be very successful in design roles, working with leathers, some have gone into the artwork, kind of art, trade, handbags, and accessories, you know, so they've, they've done really well. off the back of the degree, I was the only one that was crazy enough to think, yeah, I'm gonna just just go out and just do the hardest thing ever. Well, while the initial steps so once you graduate, you have it in mind that you want to start your own business, what were the first phone calls? What are the first outlays for you to try and put this business together? I mean, for me, it wasn't so much that I was left out on my own because most students on the course kind of decided to go into actual kind of employment roles. So the university was very supportive in regards to making sure we had the right contacts and things like that. And I did a multi channelling internship. So I looked at kind of marketing, social media trend analysis for a footwear company. And that kind of cemented my idea of, no, I kind of want to do something on my own. And so I just started, boring, just started drawing, designing was working at a pub at the time. So they kind of let me use one of the restaurant tables to get my pencils out on my break and things like that I draw kind of anywhere I could. And once I kind of had some stuff together, I really just applied the same structure as I would have done at university. And it was like a little project of what I wanted to create and mood boards and kind of marketing structures and things. And my first step was to go to the British footwear Association. And I met with them in a little cafe in London, and I brought my laptop and all of my sketches. And basically just presented. And they were able to kind of help me get more contacts kind of tell me where to go in regards to to the industry, the type of events and people that I needed to be meeting. And then it was just kind of from that just a lot of hard work trying to introduce yourself and let people know that you're serious that you're actually going to do this and you know, they're going to benefit from you doing it. The biggest kind of not so much stumbling block that I had, but the hardest part was sourcing a UK manufacturer and it's a lot smaller in the UK now than it ever used to be. And there's so many kind of established brands already in that area. They don't necessarily need to take on someone like me who's you know, brand new and fresh faced and I want to do all of this and trying to track down a factory that would help me support me encourage me and make my designs for me, was incredibly difficult because most production is overseas. Now when it comes to retail I was incredibly lucky to be able to find the factory that I did, and I'm still with them now. And that's based out of Northampton, Ryan, Northampton, the epicentre for cobblers and footwear and shoe makers in the UK though. Yeah, absolutely. So my factory is in a village just outside North Hampton called walleston. And they're about three miles down the road from Doc Martens and churches. And it's, it's great it is. A lot of people know that North Hampton is kind of the home of footwear. But what you don't realise when you go on to a factory tour down there, or look around the area, it's like stair, stepping back in time a little bit. And that's what I absolutely adore about it when I step into the factory is like, I've gone back a couple of hundred years. And and it's I'm sorry, it's absolutely brilliant. Everyone's so so friendly. And everyone has their own individual workstation. And you know, there's a person that does one thing, there's a person that doesn't another thing, and they're incredibly skilled, proper craftsmen. And it's brilliant to work with people like that. But yeah, like I said, it's a bit. It's a bit surreal. I went on one of my factories tours a year or so ago with a with a friend who was doing some photography and a blog about the shoes and the factory. And the managing director came up to me and he said, Oh, Danny, can I have your help? Second? I say, Yeah, what's what's going on? It's like, go around the factory and take down all the nudie calendars. Not too many. Okay, seven male model calendars going around in the on the factory floor those days. I just I was just laughing. And I just thought, you know what, that's, that's brilliant. Because, you know, you don't, you don't really see a lot of that kind of stuff anymore. But it was Yeah, wow, listen, you've got to be entrenched in the blue collar background to know about the calendars that you might bind. In these sort of facts. I worked in a sawmill probably for about five years, and I had a guy, he owned this company bandsaw. So yeah, just like this one. So away, we chop his wood up. And he didn't just have the one calendar on the wall. So every time you get a new calendar, he would just put it on top of the old calendar. And in the end, you'd actually have to link from the nail so that you could fit all of these calendars one over the top of each other. It started as like a little build pin. But now you've got a 12 inch nail that's going all the way through the wall. We have all these calendars. Yeah, I can picture myself. They're amazing. Brilliant. That's what you call customising your workspace? Yeah, yeah, adapt, improvise, and move on. I digress. So. So I'm thinking now that you have to, and don't let me put words in your mouth, please let please correct me, you now have to go away and perhaps raise some capital to start buying some of your stock? Or do they? Do they make the order? How does the process and the relationship work between you and the factory. I mean, initially, when I kind of approached my, my factory, they worked with me and just kind of watering down some of my designs and making sure that they were kind of to the specifications that that I had put forward. And the prototype stage of making shoes is very different to kind of the, the actual full blown stock order. So for my prototypes, I had a really small order of 12 shoes. And they are slightly more expensive, obviously, as you would expect for kind of the prototype stage. And, but that was the best way to determine what was going to work and what wasn't going to work. And from that point onwards, you know, I still work with the factory and making sure that the shoes are going to come out exactly kind of how I want them. And, and they will kind of stop me from time to time and say it's a good idea, but it's just not going to work. That colour is not going to work or something like that. At heart. I am a designer, so I know the ins and outs of how to make shoes, but I am by no means an actual Craftsman in it. So I take points sometimes from what they say, and I trust their judgement. And in regards to kind of raising capital and things I was very fortunate that I had money saved up I was working two or three jobs at one point. So I saved up money for the kind of outcome I have what I needed for the initial prototypes and stuff. I've had a lot of support from parents and my family to try and help me make it work. And then I got involved with Virgin startups. So I'm a member of that community as well. Okay, so I kind of had to learn as I go. In regards to the financial side of things, I'm very fortunate that there are accountants and bookkeepers in my family. And that I've been able to kind of say, Can you teach me how to do this, I kind of want to know, what I'm doing here. And as the years have gone by, I kind of self taught myself a lot of the aspects of my business, I want to make sure that I know at least the bare basics of every single thing that I'm dealing in. So now in regards to kind of stock, I keep very, very minimal stock the orders that I put in a very small because I'm still trying to build the business. And it's, it's a product that I don't want masses of it's not a mass product I don't make in China I make in the UK, the shoes are handmade, they do take longer to make, and they are more exclusive because of that. And it's important that that that is relayed properly from me to potential customers. Yeah. So what is your role? You're very much by the sounds of it, the one woman ban this operation? And so what is your role within the company now? And how do you operate with it on a day to day? Yeah, I mean, I would probably refer to myself as a professional dog's body at this stage. I, I mean, I will, I've worked in a lot of different industries, since I was 1314 years old. And the one thing that I wanted to make sure my own business had was someone in charge, which would be me. Who knows what it takes to do every single part of the job. Like I said, it's very important for me not to just be the designer, but to learn the financial side to learn the marketing side, social media advertising. And, and it's, it's still an ongoing process. For me, I am a bit of a one woman band. I try to do as much myself as I possibly can, for the reasons that I already outlaid. But, I mean, like I said before, I probably do have some some deep rooted control issues going on there. You're gonna have to delegate at some point, Daniel. I know. I kind of like as much of it I could do myself. I Well, a lot of people have referred to me as a bit of a workaholic. before. I was, by the way, not a bad thing. Nobody's ever accused me of that. That would be my dream to be someone who's got a Yeah, he just never slept. But you know, Richard Gere and pretty women, the guy that never slept, yeah, that was him. Yeah, I wish I could say I was the person that never slept. But I am such a good sleeper, I am a professional Napa. So I definitely get my sleep in. But I don't think of what I do as, as work. So a lot of my day is taken up by what other people would refer to as work. And what I would refer to was just stuff that needs to be done, you know, and I, as I said, I have a lot of support, I keep everything really small. So being a one woman band, it kind of makes it easier for me, in terms of introducing the brand to customers, to clients. Because when the contact me on social media, or through the website, it is going to be me that you're going to get and so there aren't really what I'd like to think there aren't any questions at this point that I wouldn't be able to answer about my brand about the product. And they seem to really like the personal kind of interaction, in a way. And I've had people before who I've met, who said, I didn't realise that I was gonna going to speak to the designer, is that just doesn't happen. just doesn't happen anymore. And I get grilled a little bit and that's fine. Well, it's nice. It's just nice to have companies that I've got a face in terms of you know, that you can reach out to someone and you'll get a personal response. And if it's someone that's actually in charge of the company is so it's such rarefied air. I think people would prefer that to anything else these days. I kind of I kind of never initially He really wanted it to be my face to be honest. But that's kind of the way that it that it happened on that trajectory. So now, I not a social media person, I am a bit like some people have referred to me as about, like old fashioned I am I'm not that techie. I don't really take pictures of everywhere I go. And now and now I have to do I am now that person who has to say, Oh, can we just get a photograph? for Instagram, and I hate it, I hate every second of having to do that. But, you know, I, I want people to know that they can talk to me ask me questions. And that's really important to me as well. So, but I do have a lot of support, I have a lot of friends who have kind of let me train them in the product. So they helped me a lot when I'm at shows or doing. It's weird to say appearances. But if I'm at an event of some sort, where people are going to be asking questions, then I have a lot of friends that are really invested in me really invested in the brand that would be able to answer those. I've got fantastic kind of marketing support, and a blog writer who I work with, that I contact a lot. And I've just made a lot of friends in the industry, people who are just willing to kind of help you as and when you need that help. And I still am in contact with my old lecturers at university, and the guys over at the British footwear Association and other brands that I've met along the way. And that's, that's all I could really hope for is that kind of community spirit of, you know, people want to help British brands, they want to support British brands. And when those brands have a face. I mean, I try and be as transparent as possible. I mean, I've had people say to me, Oh, so you know, your shoes, you know, they're real profit, like nice shoes. So what type of shoes do you buy? I'm just like, cheap ones. Ever I can find in the Red Cross, and then I'll be haggling as well. Yeah, I just I tried to be as transparent with people as possible. Because that is who I am. That's what I want the brand to be. And hopefully I'm doing that successfully. I don't know. Well, I mean, I guess that leads me on to a question about you. Well, what do you think about social media? Now you have like this kind of hands off approach or, or in terms of, you have to use it, I guess, as to leverage traffic to your site. So it has utility, but what do you think about influencers and people that use Instagram as kind of a way of life? And have you had to develop relationships with these people? Yeah, I mean, I did say a little bit about kind of how I feel about social media. I mean, I don't have a hands off approach, I can't afford to have a hands off approach. I spend a lot of time on social media planning social media a lot on photography and imagery, because that is part of the job. And I'm absolutely happy to do I really kind of love that side of things. Because you know, it's going to going to reach people, people are going to see it. And I think social media is a great kind of asset to small businesses. It's a really good asset for people in general. For me, personally, like I said, I am a bit of a hermit, so I don't really use it a lot. Personally, I probably wouldn't have it if I had an option. But I also don't pick up the phone and I'm that person. You mean? I mean, listen, somebody called me the other day about her fate. And I just said to Anastasia sitting next to me, I said, Can you believe the bosom this guy? just calling me without even texting ahead and planning you know, didn't tell me to block out a window just calls me and face calls me as well. So No, I don't. I've got a I've got to commit to a conversation. Yeah, this is gonna go on. I mean, I wasn't even doing anything goes watching the Ozarks, but that's beside the point. No, I am I am very much similar to you. And in in that respect. I mean, I've got friends who say like, if I call them and I say, Hey, I was just calling to see how you are they would think I was in a like, kidnap kind of situation. Because I just don't I just don't do that. Yeah. But yeah, so social media is is absolutely great and crucial. For the business and I have worked with endorsers before or influences. It's not my favourite thing in the world. And for for no other reason, then you know, as an Instagram especially grows in popularity and has been over the years, you know, you kind of you stop having a personal relationship with the people that you're working with. And instead you're kind of buying their services. And and you don't know who their followers are, you don't know if they're actually going to hit the right people. So I am extremely picky, I would probably say, I, I've worked with endorsers before, and I've worked with models before and bloggers. And it's really crucial to me that if someone's going to be wearing my shoes, regardless of whether they are a model endorser, customer family member, they're wearing something that I have designed, and they're wearing something that that has been handmade, and I want them to like the shoes, I want them to be comfortable, and enjoy them, everyone is still a customer to me. So anyone I work with, I want to make sure that they actually, like the product want to be seen in the product. That's really, really important to me. And it's important that anyone I work with at all, whether it be my blog writer, whether it be someone at an event, like I said a model or anything like that, I prefer to meet them in in person and have a conversation over the telephone at the very least, because only as a last resort. Yeah, I am more of a face to face person. But I, they are they are becoming if they work with me, part of my brand and part of you know, an image that customers are going to see. And it's important to me that I pick the right people, people that want to help British brands, people that know me that that know the product that like the product, and you do get a lot of endorses out there who, who you are just buying their services, you know, and if anything, they're helping you, you're not really helping them and, and I want anyone that wears my shoes to feel like, like I am helping them that I'm serving a need for them. Because that's the whole point in starting a business is that you're servicing a need. And I really is so important is so so important that they that they like the product. Because you do get approached especially as a small brand, you do kind of get seen as a bit gullible but vulnerable from time to time. And I've fallen into traps, I think everyone's fallen into traps. And if you you learn from that, I don't want to be giving away product to someone who just kind of likes them. Or they don't want to be paying someone where it's just it's not going to benefit them or me. So it's really important on social media when you've got such a massive network of people to make sure that they're the right people. You know, does that make sense? It makes perfect sense now Thank you. Well, listen, I'm we're kind of calling each other in the middle of a very crazy time. So I was gonna ask how has the pandemic, you know, affected trade and affected you personally as this has halted things? Or are people now gravitating more to your website? Because they got time on their hands? How are you seeing it play out? It's a bit of a funny one, I think right at the beginning of this thing. There was a lot of kind of, Oh, it's either gonna go really well with online shopping or it's, it's gonna go really badly. And I kind of went into it with I didn't want to panic, you know? And I kind of thought, right, this is not an ideal situation. We know that and the likelihood of people wanting to buy you know, footwear that isn't slippers for the next kind of 12 weeks is probably going to be quite low. So I set my expectations quite low to begin with. Like I said, I didn't want to panic and I thought what can I do during this time that means that I am going to come out of this a little bit stronger than I went into it because I have had to cancel a lot, not so much cancel, but I have had, you know, shows that I've had to cancel, and events where I would have been there selling product, you know, meeting people, not a huge part of my business. And without that going on, it's obviously you do get panicked and you do feel pressure as to how am I going to make that up. But in this situation, it's just so important not. For me personally not to feel that level of fear. I don't think it helps me, I don't think it helps my mindset at all. And it means that I won't be able to work clearly. So for me, it was just making sure that I was optimising the website, working on the website, blogs, making sure people had you know, things to read that were going to interest them during this period. And I've produced a little games page on the website that's just got some word searches. What the difference crosswords that I've kind of that I made at home, and that people can have a go out of print out I've done some other bookshelves with all the shoes up against the book for Yeah, yeah. So that was, yeah, you can kill a couple of hours with that Jesus Christ. Yeah, I did that. I did that on Photoshop. So I kind of like I said, I self teach myself a lot of stuff. So I do all of that kind of thing myself. And it was pretty gruelling to do it. But, you know, I thought it gives someone a bit of time to kind of challenge themselves challenged their brain a little bit. And I did some colouring in first for the kids that can be printed out online. Because, you know, the likes of my sister at the moment, she's got two kids under the age of six. And I thought, well, they might want to colour in some shoes. And you know, there's loads of aspiring footwear designers out there. So yeah, yeah. Come up with a little bit. So, yeah, I've done I've done some things, you have to kind of change your marketing and change the way you're thinking and really think outside the box to get people's attention. And this is fantastic, by the way. So the people that haven't been on your website already, it's Percy stripe.com. And if you head over to the quarantine games, you have like a circle of shoes that you can download. You can even just have like the simple silhouette of a shoe. And then you can try and put in your own designs you can try colouring in. I mean, yeah, you can have a lot of fun with these and you kill a few hours again, just give it to the kids as well. Something for them to do. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I still get people that kind of say to me, they're like, what do you do? I'm like, I'm a footwear designer. I didn't realise people did that. And it's just one of those trades that people just don't hear much of, especially if you're not in North Hampton. I mean, I'm in parts of the country where you don't ever meet the footwear designer. If you're in a pub in Northampton, it's like, yeah, never one. Right. So, I mean, it's really like, I mean, my nephews and things like that. I mean, it's it's a career choice that they've probably never heard of. So when my sister's like, Oh, you know, Arnie, Danielle's got some colour in in for some shoes, you know, it's kind of opening up a little world for people that this is something that they can do. And I'm sure that there's some kids out there that would love to give it a go. Yeah, absolutely. So it's, I've had, you know, I've, I'm not running out of steam too much on some ideas yet, but it's important at this time, you know, to make sure that I'm kind of giving people what they what they need. And yeah, like I said, just thinking outside the box, right, getting people engaged with the brand. And that's what I want, because I know people aren't necessarily going to be buying shoes right now. It's not gonna be their top priority right now. And we don't know what the economy is going to look like coming out of this. But if I can have more people knowing about the brand and engaging with the brand coming out of this thing going in, then I am more than happy with that. And you've also got klarna set up on your website as well, which is a great tool for people that especially now they might think well I'm going to ring fence a little bit of my spending just to see what happens but they also want to get a good shoes for when they get released. So you've got a few payments out. So yeah, definitely check out Percy stripe.com. Daniel, what do you got coming up? What projects are you working on at the moment And so at the moment, I'm always looking at designing new ranges. And there's loads of stuff kind of going on on social media that I'm gonna release or am releasing currently to keep an eye out on anyway. But I have actually decided design in a new range for 2021. So I'm kind of gone to social media a bit and asked clients and fans of the brand, what they'd like to see, because a lot of what I do is based on what other people think, you know, I'm a woman designing men shoes, so it's not as though I can pull upon my personal preferences too much. Yeah. And so I rely on what people tell me and I've got a list of things kind of stored away people that I've met, and over the last three years of you know, that they'd like to see that I'm kind of working down and seeing how I can incorporate those ideas. And hopefully, I'm going to have a few options coming up. While I'm in quarantine, I might as well do some drawing so yep, kill few hours. And hopefully, I'll come out of this with some new designs that I'll be able to show people that are going to be ready for 2021 and see everyone on the other side of this in a year's time and be able to look back and go on. That was the quarantine range. Like it Yeah. Listen, Daniel, thanks for being so generous with your time and if the people do want to check out you then I guess it's through the website also Instagram Percy stride footwear. And I guess a couple of updates and a few posts will go up there that will take people to the site. And yet it's it's been a real pleasure talking to you. Thanks so much. Thank you. It's really nice to speak to you as well. Pete. How good was Danielle, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me Danielle Percy stripe.com once again, the website where you can check out all of her wonderful shoes. And that is it for this episode. Thank you for listening for making it all the way through. I hope that was of some help to you. Have some interest. Make sure you're staying safe out there. And in the meantime, remember, it's only fashion people and you're never fully dressed without a smile.

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