Schmid: Fabrics and technologieS for footwear
Footwear collection of new generation made with artisanal quality come from the close collaboration between the company based in San Giuliano Milanese and international designers, fashion schools, trendy characters. The chairman Paolo Ciccarelli tells us the story of a brand with a german name, therefore operating in the converted field as a valuable partner of the italian craftsmanship in the world.
The brand Schmid was officially founded in 1942. The founder, Walter Schmid, is a German Swiss who arrived in Italy to start a representative office of technical items for the footwear industry. To reinforcement sheets, sewing threads, buckles and buttons are soon added those fabrics and materials designed specifically to build the upper, German products of high quality that allow Schmid to gain a significant customer base. The same quality that ensured a good profitability which, in a period of aggressive and ruthless finance, led the company under the magnifying glass of some potential financial investors. We are at the beginning of the eighties; at the end of the same decade, Schmid seems to have already exhausted its growth momentum: Walter Schmid is elderly and his son does not intend to pursue his business. The company was sold in the early nineties to a private equity fund that runs it without a strong management presence: a process of decline starts and Schmid sees the switch from one fund to another, aiming at speculating rather than developing the business.The company then lost the representation of major trademarks and the volume of business and profitability decreased significantly. Hence the need to call someone who was able both to restore the company under the financial point of view and to revive its industry perspective. In 2011 the breakthrough began: the French fund, once reference shareholder, together with the residual group of shareholders of the previous administrations, entrust the presidency to Paolo Ciccarelli, former Chief Financial Officer of the London Stock Exchange Group and Barclays in Italy. Ciccarelli is a wise businessman expert in special transactions, who initially devotes himself to the supervision of the financial issues, governance and relationship between the various investors, which, however, subsequently declare their limited interest in supporting the business. The bank that had once supported the latest acquisition is however still willing to believe in Schmid, provided that there are people interested to take over the management and ownership. On this basis, since December 2013 to date, Paolo Ciccarelli manages and implements the recovery plan of the company and the transfer of ownership from the previous shareholding structure to a group of four stockholders decided to invest time, resources and expertise in the “new” business.
Mr. Paolo Ciccarelli, what are your targets for 2015?
2015 inaugurates a restructured company under the corporate, production, commercial, organizational profiles thanks to the work done in more than two years of intense turnaround. We face 2015 with a new shareholder structure consisting of a team of four stockholders with specific and complementary expertise, two of which, the general director Vittorio Onetti and I, are daily involved in the company. The development programs start from here, so as promotion, brand repositioning and diversification in areas that traditionally don’t belong to the core business, but that promise an interesting growth in sales and margins.
What’s your challenge?
Beyond the social responsibility of saving a reality that is constantly generating financial resources and employs over twenty collaborators and a considerable network, we wanted to revive a brand with a historic role and high visibility in the Italian and international production system, capable to serve in a unique way a leading sector of the Made in Italy in the world such as fashion accessories. Our numbers are growing because we are fortunate to be able to satisfy a sector that also exports its products.
In order to complete the restructuring process, a work on cultural transformation is also needed.
Sure, after years of stalemate we are creating the conditions to establish a different mentality. It is not crucial to play a role, but it is crucial the way everyone performs his task and pushes others to do likewise. From here comes a team that faces the problems and studies solutions together, with an open dialogue between the various roles within the company.
The proposition and the reaction capacity that is in itself a service to the customer are also crucial topics.
The product we sell needs to be available in the right quantity, on time and with the quality required by a sector, such as fashion, which in turn should produce at certain times and be able to restock quickly. Not being exclusivist patent holders, if we want to be credible in this field we have to speak the language of the great international brands. We cannot work without the combination of product/service or high quality. Our customers are divided into two categories. The big fashion brands don’t need Schmid to identify their trends, however, they require technical support and stimuli to invent. Our relationship with leading designers consists in offering our skills as partners by providing them, in advance compared to other suppliers, a range of high quality products from which they can imagine or expand a certain use. Then there are those brands with a major sell-out, that must be able to innovate their collections without investing the same resources of the big names into research: for this segment of customers we have in place some collaborations with designers and cool hunters able to provide guidelines along which our production management, which has a deep technical expertise of the material, develops new ideas and suggestions. Not forgetting our presence in the most important trade shows in Milan and Paris.
Are you also intended to innovate your communication channels?
Certainly: in 2015 Schmid’s trend book will constitute an “event” in the footwear industry, thanks to its content’s presentation and timing. We also have a new website and, from the next edition of Lineapelle, we will work both on the front desk and on the back office. All this will allow us to communicate on an equal level with the fashion brands and become their preferred partners.
You are known as “the guys of satin and glitter”. What other materials do you have in store for future trends?
That’s true, we are known as “the guys” of glitter, satin and velvet, but we have a whole range of other products that, under quality and price points of view, make us highly competitive. We also provide mesh, vinyl and polyurethane, nylon, lycra and neoprene, but also lace and sequins that make up the history of the company, as well as microfiber, jacquard knit wool and much more.
Details of Schmid’s collection: more than a hundred different colours of satin made in the variations silk/viscose, polyester, glossy, semi-matt; the glitter is renewed season after season; the mesh ensures transparency and special effects; vinyl and polyurethane are manufactured according to the latest international standards regarding the environment protection, with special processes that make them more lucid and transparent; embroidered fabrics feature exquisite designs made with precious yarns; velvets are unique thanks to their brilliance and softness to the touch.
