Velasca Milano opens in New York City

Velasca Milano, an Italian brand that offers high-quality Made in Italy shoes at fair prices, has opened a store in New York City, with their first location at 250 Elizabeth Street in SoHo. With a business model that aims at creating a direct-to-consumer channel that allows for reasonably priced, handcrafted shoes, the store’s purpose is to become a neighborhood point of reference for customers. Velasca’s store are referred to as “Bottegas”, a name that in Italy indicates the small-town artisanal shops, where the relation between client and artisan is personal and goes far beyond the one-time sell.

Every Velasca Bottega has its own unique theme, and the one chosen for the Elizabeth Street location is represented by Italian design. Inside the shop, customers will find unique pieces of Italian production history, as well as some of the shoe mockups made by hand at the beginning of the Velasca brand’s journey.

All Velasca’s shoes are made in small artisan workshops in the hills of the Marche region, called Montegranaro. There, shoemaking is a family tradition that is handed down from generation to generation, and that is replicated with the same love and meticulous attention of the past. The result is a unique product, that shares all the history and the beauty of the place. They are not simply produced but created.

“The New York Bottega sets a very important milestone in our entrepreneurial challenge focused on the production and trade of high-quality handmade shoes,” said Jacopo Sebastio, co-founder and CEO of Velasca, in a statement. “We are proud today to finally have a place where New Yorkers can experience the timeless style, focused on refinement and elegance, that Italian craftsmanship has to offer.”

The location in New York City is the twelfth physical store that Velasca has with other locations including Milan, Rome, Florence, Turin, Bologna, Palermo, London, and Paris.

Velasca’s collection is comprised of both formal and casual shoes, all made with the same artisanal craftsmanship approach. At the start of Velasca’s business, more than 70 percent of their sales came from the formal segment. Today, also due to the evolution toward remote working, most sales come from the casual models, like moccasins, espadrilles and dockers.