Shoe designer Ruthie Davis '84 has always been a trend-setter. Her shoe company, Davis, has been known to challenge even the highly progressive fashion industry. Her stilettos, boots, sandals, and flats have appeared in magazines such as Glamour, Lucky, InStyle, People, Vogue, and Bazaar, and, like Davis, are constantly pushing the fashion envelope.
Davis, who now sells her shoes out of a showroom in SoHo, New York, estimated that she has completed 10 collections, totaling around 250 designs. Though her company is small, her shoes are sold in 13 countries, and each season has brought a profit margin. Even in the midst of the nation's economic turmoil, she grossed seven figures in 2008 and expects 2009 to be a highly successful year.
"I am thriving right now as consumers want to only buy something very special if they are going to spend money," said Davis. "I am actually very optimistic about 2009, and I think it may be my biggest year yet."
Describing herself as someone who "values practicality," Davis said she occasionally succumbed to the Patagonia, L.L. Bean, and North Face gear worn by most Bowdoin students during her years on campus. Even in the midst of a Maine winter, however, Davis said she preferred tighter jackets and well-fitted clothing that satisfied her architectural approach to clothing and her "love of the linear" in fashion.
"As a freshman and sophomore I may have worn the typical Bowdoin gear, but as a junior and senior I definitely started to branch out and do my own thing," said Davis. "I used to wear a red bandanna around my neck, and after a while I noticed other girls doing the same thing. I think people noticed."
Davis was noticed for more than her sense of style while at Bowdoin. An English and Visual Arts double major, Davis wrote sports articles and a column called "Mainely Health" in the Orient, and she was a captain of the women's tennis and squash teams. She also launched Bowdoin Aerobics, a program that was hugely successful during the aerobics craze of the '80s and '90s.
A Connecticut native, Davis was attracted to Bowdoin because of its focus on the individual and its emphasis on developing the whole person. Davis said she believes Bowdoin's philosophy helped prepare her for her role as a successful entrepreneur.
"In order to do your own thing, you have to be someone who has a very well-rounded sense of everything," said Davis. "The great thing about Bowdoin is that it emphasizes the individual and being multi-faceted. The more well-rounded you are, the better."
After graduating from Bowdoin, Davis went on to try sports journalism, reporting at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games and covering sports for the Hartford Courant. She went on to work for ESPN as a production assistant at SportsCenter from 1985-86, then worked on Cape Cod at TV 58 running her own health and fitness show. In 1987 Davis moved to Vermont to begin her first entrepreneurial project, opening a gym and fitness center called MadSport Fitness, featuring a health club, a clothing shop, weight area and personal training. Davis quickly realized that she loved entrepreneurship.
"Owning MadSport at the young age of 25 or 26 encouraged me to develop a deeper understanding of entrepreneurship," said Davis, who went on to earn an MBA in entrepreneurship at Babson University Graduate School of Business in 1993.
After receiving her MBA, Davis went on to work at her first job in the fashion industry as a "cool hunter" for Reebok in 1993, The job required her to spot and predict the new trends in the industry, which Davis said she has always "had an eye for."
"I've always had a sense of what's going to be the hot thing," said Davis. "There's a method to finding out what's in, what's out."
According to Davis, she would often stand on street corners in Boston and ask passersby which shoes they liked, which they didn't, and why. Davis' success in "trend-forecasting" soon earned her the position of Director of the Reebok Classic Division. Davis used her innovation and creativity to launch the "Classic Derivatives" shoe line, which ruthiedavis.com defines as "reinvented versions of Reebok's classic white sneaker" that "launched a consumer love affair with 'throwback' designs in footwear."
Davis' success at Reebok led her to be contacted by UGG California, then a budding company in desperate need of someone to help with marketing and public relations. According to Davis, "ugg" is a generic term used to describe makeshift sheepskin shoes worn by surfers in Australia to keep their feet warm after morning wave riding. The shoe was brought to California by a surfer named Brian Smith before becoming popular with locals and leading Smith to launch UGG California.
"When I got to UGG, they had no marketing plan, and they were virtually unknown on the East Coast," said Davis. "I put together a marketing, PR, and design campaign to reinvent the UGG and get the name out."
Davis' design team created new UGG models featuring fur collars, exposed seams and elevated bottoms, and Davis used careful product placement in magazines and print-ads to market the updated UGG design across the country. After working for UGG from 1998 to 2001, "one day the trend just took off. I think getting the shoes on Oprah especially helped," said Davis.
After leaving UGG, Davis was prepared to launch her own company, but had to postpone due to 9/11. Instead, she took up a position as vice president of marketing and design for women's footwear at Tommy Hilfiger and launched a new division, "Tommy Girl Shoes," aimed at younger female consumers. After two years at Hilfiger, Davis said she felt it was the right time to try her own thing.
"I think it's something I've been working toward my whole life," said Davis. "I always knew I had a vision and a passion, I just needed to finally articulate it."
In 2005 Davis developed a business plan before going to a design show in Italy and developing the full concept of her line. She then took the shoes to China to be made, because China was the country capable of producing the carbon-fiber heels and high-tech designs featured in her first line. After creating the line, Davis said there was a "period of definite highs and lows" in which she remembers begging store-owners to buy the shoes, oftentimes without avail.
"It definitely was a process of learning as I went," said Davis, who now oversees every aspect of her company, from design to marketing, public relations and production. Davis remembers a launching event in Chelsea in 2006 as a turning point for her company.
"That's when I knew it was real," she said.
Davis only hires interns and otherwise pays specialists from Raw Information Group a monthly fee and commission to handle various aspects of the business and design process, though according to Davis, 90 percent of what she does today is running a business, and 10 percent is design-oriented.
Davis has already begun launching a fall 2009 line and is busy at work with her spring 2010 line. As for the future, she said she really wants "to establish herself as a footwear brand" that can compete with other high-fashion shoe lines like "Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin." Davis has also begun plans to open very modern "pod-like stores" in top fashion cities like New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, or Belgium. No matter her plans, Davis continues to stand out as perhaps the only female American designer competing in the high fashion shoe market shared with Gucci, Prada, and Chanel, and she is adoring every moment of it.
"It takes knowing what you love, having a dream, and being confident to make the leap," said Davis.