Beatriz de los Mozos was only 28 when she received the devastating news. As a young woman with scoliosis, the time had finally come, and she had been advised against wearing her favorite shoes. Instead, she was instructed to wear shoes that aided her back and were, for lack of a better word, not as complimentary as her favorite espadrilles. For someone as fashion-forward as de los Mozos, this simply would not do. If her own shoes were hurting her back, then she would just have to make new ones. An entirely different shoe that combined fashion with function. At just 28 de los Mozos created Flabelus, a Spanish shoe that redefined the traditional espadrille and Mary Jane. Only five years later Flabelus has 11 flagship stores and is opening their first ever store in the US this month. I sat down with Beatriz de los Mozos at a pop-up event in Austin to talk about it all.
Starting up Flabelus, de los Mozos had no real background in business or fashion, “I’m a marriage acquisitions lawyer,” she explained. “I didn’t want to relinquish using my flats because I really love flats. So I said, you know what? I need to find a solution.” She began reaching out to shoe factories in Spain, hoping they would help her design a shoe that would be cute and comfortable, “It’s very difficult to get someone to believe in you and to produce for you.” After what felt like rejection after rejection, de los Mozos was starting to lose hope. This was December of 2020, plenty of factories were closed down, and the ones that weren’t had little interest in helping.
In a last-ditch effort, de los Mozos texted a friend of hers in the shoe business, “I said, look. Do you think a factory of Espadrilles may be able to design a shoe for me?” Thankfully her efforts paid off, “She sent me the name of this factory and was like, ‘text these guys.’” The factory ended up agreeing to help her, and in no time de los Mozos was looking at the first-ever sample of Flabelus, “He was a young man, and my friend thought maybe he’s open to innovate or do something different. He said yes, and he made the first sample.”
This takes us to today, 11 flagship stores in Spain, France, and the UK, one US store freshly opened in New York City, and more on the horizon, Flabelus is taking the shoe industry by storm. When I asked de los Mozos about the decision to come to the US, she said it was a no-brainer, “The States are not only a big country, but a big market. It’s the first market in the world with China. So in the end, you have to be here.” To her, having a store in the US is the first step in making Flabelus a global brand, “That’s my ambition. I want a brand that works everywhere. If Flabelus doesn’t work here, it’s not working in half of the world.” In fact, this very pop-up event was hosted by Saint Bernard, a high-end Texas-founded store that already carries Flabelus. Slowly, they are making the US their home.
There’s so much that sets Flabelus apart from other shoe brands. The story, the style, the fact that every pair is handcrafted by artisans. As we continued to speak, de los Mozos filled me in on yet another whimsical touch Flabelus adds; their annual collections, “So, basically, every year, we choose an ambassador.” These, she shared with me, are always a character in literature, “So last year was Alice in Wonderland. Two years ago, we had Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby). Three years ago, Mulan.” These characters become Flabelus’ main inspiration for the collection, impacting color schemes, shapes, and fabrics of the shoes, “We reinvent the characters, so we give them a twist into the woman that they would have wanted to be.”
This year is extra exciting as the annual collection is being inspired by Empress Sissi, “So in the case of Sissi, I think this is a very interesting profile because she was a bit of an early adopter of her time. So basically, her ideas, her way of thinking, her way of living were completely the opposite of a period where rules were all over the place, where women were nothing…She was very cultured. She loved nature. She was a traveler. She was a dreamer. She wrote. So she was a very interesting profile, and we created a twenty-first century Sissi that is all of that freely.”
As de los Mozos gave me a sneak peek at the Summer Collection, she described to me one of her favorite shoes in it, “[It has] a natural embroidery with stars, because the typical painting of Sissi. It comes with the stars in the hair, and it’s like a very modern painting, but very well known. So we reproduced those stars in embroidery in the shoes, and they are this is a transparent mesh. Very, very beautiful.” As we spoke, my excitement for the collection grew more and more. We walked over to Saint Bernards Flabelus display for a better look and I was mesmerized. Captivated by the shoe’s chic yet sophisticated nature.
While people in the business have been very receptive to her Flabelus shoes, de los Mozos shared with me that the most impactful to her were the testimonials from her customers. A woman with 95% of her body covered in burns wrote to de los Mozos about how Flabelus was the first shoe she was able to wear that didn’t hurt. It made her feel like a woman again. Another woman, the lone survivor of a helicopter crash, spoke at a Flabelus event about feeling beautiful in her body for the first time in the shoes. As much as Flabelus is about fashion, its comfort cannot be underestimated. Even de los Mozos says that since wearing the shoes, her own back pain has all but vanished. It was inspiring to learn about the face behind these stylish yet soothing shoes.
Click the links below to learn more about Flabelus and Beatriz de los Mozos.
