Marina Larroudé Is Disrupting the Fashion Industry One Shoe at a Time

Larroudé has taken that same approach with her namesake global footwear brand (pronounced lah-roo-DAY), which offers luxury shoes for between $290 and $590. Larroudé and her co-founder, CEO, and husband, Ricardo Larroudé, then both unemployed, launched their debut collection in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic with just $4,000 and a Shopify site. They offered a selection of four styles: a knee-high boot, a chunky platform, a mule, and a pointed-toe ballet flat. The shoes came in black, ivory, and a few playful patterns, including a daisy print. While the floral pattern was more her style, the mother of two knew from her previous job working as vice president and fashion director at Barneys New York that neutral colors always sold best. Yet something unexpected happened after the COVID vaccine became available and people started going out again: the daisy print sold out. “It was like a revenge shopping situation,” she says.The self-financed brand leaned into Marina’s style, designing shoes for those who were looking to have fun with fashion without sacrificing comfort. “I don’t want someone to buy a shoe from us and not wear it,” she says, which is why she hired a fellow Brazilian woman as head engineer to construct her shoes, which include wider toe boxes and memory foam soles, from scratch. Building the construction internally instead of buying an existing model, which is the industry norm, was an expensive move that ended up paying off for the brand, whose famous fans include Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Alicia Keys, and former First Lady Jill Biden. As an entrepreneur, Marina believes she has to take risks in order to succeed. “If I play by the old playbook, I’m not going to get anywhere,” she says. “We are here to disrupt what no longer works.”It’s not the only risk Marina took to grow her brand, which also designs handbags. At Ricardo’s suggestion, she moved away from the wholesale business model—the industry standard which prioritizes bulk orders from major retailers—and adopted a more sustainability-minded direct-to-consumer model. Customers are able to pre-order upcoming styles months in advance, allowing the company to streamline production processes and ensure minimal waste. “We see what the customers are responding to,” she says. “And then we chase that demand.”By 2023, demand was so great that Marina and Ricardo opened a nearly 100,000 sq ft factory in Sapiranga, Brazil, where production, logistics, marketing, and administration all happen under one roof. In less than five years, Larroudé has grown from a five-person team to an operation of 750 employees. The brand with nine-digit revenue currently manufactures 500,000 shoes a year with a goal to manufacture a million pairs annually by 2028.As the business continues to expand, supporting the Brazilian people behind the brand remains a priority. “To give prosperity back to a country,” Marina says, including by providing employees with comprehensive health benefits and opportunities for growth, “that, for me, is the silver lining.”