Luxury Footwear: Why Camilla Gabrieli, Amina Muaddi and Celine Are Betting on Signature Shoes

Blog / Luxury Footwear: Why Camilla Gabrieli, Amina Muaddi and Celine Are Betting on Signature Shoes

Luxury Footwear: Why Camilla Gabrieli, Amina Muaddi and Celine Are Betting on Signature Shoes

Blog / Luxury Footwear: Why Camilla Gabrieli, Amina Muaddi and Celine Are Betting on Signature Shoes

Molly Sims arrived at the New York premiere of Kinda Pregnant in February 2025 in a pair of gold sphere-heeled sandals from Camilla Gabrieli, a label most people outside the industry had never heard of. Within days, the heel was the only part of the outfit anyone discussing the red carpet wanted to talk about. Emerging labels are increasingly building their identity around a single silhouette instead of a full collection, letting a sculptural heel or a stripped-back trainer carry the message that used to need an entire show.

Luxury Footwear Market Growth: The Numbers Behind the Trend

Fortune Business Insights values the global luxury footwear market at $41.29 billion for 2025, expected to reach $76.48 billion by 2034, with sneakers already accounting for roughly a third of that total, the largest single category the firm tracks. Other research houses land on different figures depending on methodology and scope, ranging from just over $20 billion to nearly $50 billion for 2025 alone. Every major tracker agrees that sneakers and loafers are growing faster than formal footwear.

Britain is part of that story too. Bonafide Research projects the UK’s luxury footwear market to pass $1.5 billion by 2029, and one industry estimate puts the UK at 21 per cent of the global luxury formal-shoe segment, growing faster than the market average.

Signature Shoes From Camilla Gabrieli, Amina Muaddi, and Mach & Mach

Camilla Gabrieli founded her label in 2019 after struggling to find her own bridal shoe, and the sphere-heeled sandal that resulted has become the brand’s calling card. Sims wore the gold Olivia sandal to that February 2025 premiere, and months later SZA turned up at the Grammys in the label’s crystal-covered Viola mules, a look Harper’s Bazaar called unstoppable.

Amina Muaddi has built something similar since launching her own label in 2018. Crystal-embellished heels and sculptural mules have become her signature, worn by Rihanna, Gigi Hadid and Kim Kardashian, with the same handful of silhouettes turning up again and again.

Mach & Mach, founded in Georgia in 2012 by sisters Nina and Gvantsa Macharashvili, took a bow motif and covered it in crystals until it became instantly identifiable on Kylie Jenner, Solange and Megan Fox. With neither brand carrying a heritage marketing budget behind it, the repetition of one shape across enough red carpets became the advertising.

Minimalist Luxury Sneakers: Koio, Axel Arigato, and Yatay

Koio designs its sneakers in New York and hand-makes them in Italy, keeping visible branding to almost nothing and letting leather quality carry the message instead. Axel Arigato, founded in Stockholm in 2014 by Albin Johansson and Max Svärdh, built its identity around Scandinavian minimalism with a Japanese-inflected cleanness, and the Clean 90 has become the sneaker people reach for when they want something that reads as expensive without a single loud detail.

Muroexe took architectural, monochrome silhouettes and built a following among buyers who treat their sneakers more like design objects than status symbols. Yatay went further still, making its sneakers entirely from plant-based materials while pricing them to sit firmly in luxury territory. All four brands are betting on the same mechanism: one product category carrying the full weight of brand recognition.

Burberry’s front row at London Fashion Week in February doubled as a footwear showcase in its own right. Jodie Turner-Smith wore the house’s Cavalier thigh-high boots, Alexa Chung chose the Baby glove pump, and Lila Moss picked out a pointed snakeskin heel, each guest effectively modelling a different silhouette from the same collection.

Milan Fashion Week’s Focus on Statement Heels and Sneakers

Milan’s autumn 2026 shows pushed the same idea further. Marni, Fendi and Prada layered heels under socks and threaded laces across the vamp, turning the shoe into the focal point of the outfit rather than an accessory to it. Fendi sent out fur-trimmed slingbacks, Gucci reworked its horsebit into a mule, and Prada showed feathered knee-high boots at Milan Fashion Week. Etro went a different route, teaming up with Birkenstock to rework the Boston clog with embroidery and custom Western buckles for the shoe’s fiftieth anniversary.

Tory Burch showed beaded kitten heels and peep-toe loafers, Khaite sent out heeled moccasins and clog variations at Bottega Veneta, and Versace had showgoers talking about what they’d buy before the shows had even ended.

Louis Vuitton, Loewe, and Celine Expand Their Luxury Sneaker Collections

Louis Vuitton launched its Sneakerina in April 2025, a hybrid built from soft lambskin with suede calf leather trim, combining the lightness of a ballet flat with the comfort of a trainer and the house’s monogram canvas along the side.

Loewe introduced its own Grip sneaker for Spring/Summer 2026, a nylon and suede design with a climbing-shoe silhouette that marked one of the first products from Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez’s debut collection as the house’s new creative directors. In September 2026, Celine released its collaboration with Reebok, reworking the 1982 Freestyle Lo in eight colourways at $750 a pair, having debuted the design on its Spring 2027 runway three months earlier.

Three houses founded in 1854, 1846 and 1973, respectively, are now producing sneakers as flagship seasonal launches, each one tied to a specific creative-director era or anniversary.

Why Signature Shoes Matter to Emerging Luxury Brands

A ready-to-wear collection needs sizing across a wide range, seasonal turnover, and a retail footprint large enough to absorb whatever doesn’t sell. A single hero shoe avoids most of that. It can be produced in small batches, priced to sit just within reach of an aspirational customer, and left to circulate on the resale market long after the original run sells out, each resale keeping the silhouette in view.

That’s what a distinctive shoe is doing for labels without the history or the balance sheet of a Louis Vuitton or a Loewe. Camilla Gabrieli didn’t need a runway show for the Olivia sandal to register. She needed one red carpet and enough repetition of the same sphere heel for it to become recognisable on sight, the same trick Etro and Celine are now paying to borrow at scale.