Born to leather makers in Greenwich Village, Sam Edelman starts his story on 11th Street and Bleecker. “My father was one of the first to discover Andy Warhol,” Edelman tells the crowd of students, setting the stage for the life of creativity and inspiration surrounding him.
Edelman began his first job, buying and selling horses after his father bought him a horse he didn’t like. He posted an ad in the newspaper and doubled the value, soon finding himself at racetracks, buying slow horses and teaching them how to be fast. He says, “My dad took me to a dude ranch. Instead of just riding the horses, I learned about the horses and I learned how to clean them, saddle them and bridel them. It became a love affair.”
“I got tired of doing horses full time. And I convinced my dad to start an equestrian oriented fashion business. That’s how we got started.” Edelman and his father traveled the world investigating equestrian style. “This was pre-Ralph Lauren,” he jokes with the audience.
Eventually the business picked up speed; the New York Post writing about Sam and his father’s successful equestrian fashion business. Edelman actually met his soon to be lifelong partner and wife, Libby, at one of the shows he and his father attended.
One day, Ralph Lauren called and asked Edelman and his father to make shoes for his upcoming show, blossoming a partnership that set up Ralph Lauren to be what it is today.
After a few years, the partnership ended. Edelman found himself in a place he had never been before: broke. “I really didn’t know what to do,” Edelman recalls, “I was always privileged, but I was 25 and broke.” Libby, Edelman’s wife and former style editor of Seventeen Magazine, stood by him through the hard times, even giving him $20 to get through the day when he had nothing.
Desperate, Edelman finds himself on 55th and Park in a phone booth, and called his best friend Kenny, begging him to put in a good word for him at one of the shoe companies that Kenny had connections to.
“If you’re going to work for anyone in the shoe business, you’re going to work for me,” Kenny told him.
Kenny, now known as Kenneth Cole, started Kenneth Cole with Sam by his side. They rented 3 trailers by tricking the city of New York into thinking they were making a movie, and started what Edelman recalls as “the original popup,” selling shoes out of the trailers.
Over the years, many opportunities came his way, including taking over the shoe department at Esprit. While he was there the company skyrocketed to what would be worth an estimated $350 million today. He even came across offers from Macy’s and invitations back to Kenneth Cole. He knew he couldn’t take them. It was time for him to go his own way.
Edelman returned to his land of inspiration, Europe, and came up with the idea for his collaboration with his wife, Sam and Libby. They didn’t have the finances, and sold literally everything except their house, even the backyard.
Libby is the partner Edelman could never have dreamed of. When speaking about her, he says, “Sometimes you just know. It’s why they write movies about it.” His chosen words to describe her? Agendaless, talented and pure.
The shoe empire that Edelman has built has many keys to success. He’s kept the same formula for business since day one, which remains the foundation for his everyday workplace.
Edelman accepts about 18 interns to his program, allowing them to do whatever they want that summer, ranging from coming into the office and giving it all you’ve got to skipping out and leaving to explore New York City. Everyone chooses the first option, he says.
Sam Edelman looks for loving designers, curious students and some prior experience in less glamorous positions, whether it may be working retail, in a restaurant or helping out the family business.
His brand is moving in a more digital direction, Edelman touching upon the importance of influencer relationships and the need to “keep up the excitement” with the customer. “Sometimes you have to say no when someone asks you to make the same thing over and over again,” he says.
A man of risks and learning from his struggles, Edelman says this to young designers who are too afraid to take that leap out from under the safety blanket, “Risk is everything.”
I asked Edelman what his biggest success was, to which he replied, “My single greatest success has been being married for 40 years. And three children, three amazing grandchildren.”
As far as the business goes, he said, “I would say initially, my biggest success was taking Sam and Libby public in 1991 with an evaluation of $45 million. But it isn’t. My biggest business success has been running Sam Edelman, and building it for over the last 13, 14 years.”
The keys to the fashion industry according to Sam Edelman? “Heart, talent and intuition.”
Words by Olivia Hawkins