It is the oddest offer ever made available in shoe shops: ”Buy two, get a third for free.”
Yet, this is precisely what two Milan-based entrepreneurs have come up with as they seek to break the monopoly of pairs and revolutionise a fashion principle that has resisted bravely for several thousand years.
Simone Cassola and Jack Ray, both in their late thirties, run ADD — oddly enough, the world’s first single-shoe manufacturer.
Their motto is ”Scoppia la coppia”, an Italian play on words loosely translated as ”Split the pair”.
”We have two feet which are different from each other, so why should shoes be in pairs?” Ray said.
He said the idea of single shoes first occurred to them while playing football.
”We noticed that one shoe was more worn out than the other. That’s when we realised that our feet are not always identical,” he said.
ADD shoes, now on sale in stores across Italy, come in different colours and styles. The company’s three-for-two offer, aimed at encouraging customers to wear mismatched shoes, is only valid if at least two of them are different.
Initially received with scepticism — ADD was officially launched on April 1, meaning many guests deserted their invitation, assuming it was an April Fool’s joke, Ray said — the company is now beginning to be taken seriously.
Earlier this year, its products were paraded at the Pitti Uomo fashion show in Florence and sales have been booming ever since.
The company currently offers both women’s and men’s shoes and is set to launch its 2005 winter collection in March.
But Ray is also warning ADD’s customers that they ”ain’t seen nothing yet”.
Are gloves and socks about to be ”unpaired” for ever? — Sapa-DPA