If you spend twenty minutes with Italian-American shoe designer Michael Toschi, chances are you’ll come away thinking he’s a megalomaniac. He’s been there, done that, knows absolutely everything there is to know about shoes and all the people who make them—and his greatest pleasure just might be telling you how it can be done better.
Although his namesake shoe company is intentionally small, Toschi isn’t afraid to call out the quality and structure of big brands like Ferragamo and Prada, and compare them to his own creations. In fact, he’ll likely begin by giving you a dizzying history of all the shoe giants he’s worked with, just to get warmed up. (Remember the original pumped up kicks? Yeah, that was Toschi.) He’ll also tell you about shoes he invented that were before their time and brands whose success he’s had a hand in (re: Uggs).
But the thing is, if you’ve seen, touched or had the fortune (literally) to wear a pair of Toschi shoes, you’d know he is right. You’d also be hard pressed to find a man as hard-working, which combined with his boyish charm, somehow makes the hubris charmingly digestible.
So how did a Bay Area native gain the rare distinction of being a real Italian designer? In part, by starting young. Michael Toschi unwittingly gained his first job in the shoe biz through a lawn-mowing gig at the age of 15. When he went to collect payment at the homeowner’s office, it turned out to be a shoe company.
The boss thought he’d simply pay the teenager in shoes and was incredulous when Toschi reviewed the display and declined. When asked why he didn’t want a pair, Toschi candidly said he didn’t like them. The company was Tred2 shoes, and Toschi had just landed himself a job as the owner’s right-hand man.
Over the next decade, Toschi learned every aspect of the business from the ground up, which still included mowing lawns from time to time, but also resoling, developing new design concepts, and creating marketing campaigns. Thus, there’s little wonder that Toschi’s first job after college at an ad agency was a bust: “The first day on the job, they’re giving me an orientation, they’re showing me around, and I’m wondering, ‘Where’s my office?’ I wanted to be creative director. I pretty much felt I could do everything better. I quit the first day. I couldn’t sweep floors and do all that again.”
Fast forward to 1997. After more than a decade traveling the world, with long stretches of time in Italy and consulting for other shoe brands, Toschi had a solid six-year gig with Ariat, an equestrian line. Yet something was missing. “I was in a water taxi in Venice, looking up at the stars, and my feet were killing me because I had been walking around all day.
I always wore dressier shoes, and I just thought, ‘I’ve been developing the most comfortable, performance-oriented shoes in the world—why don’t I marry the Italian, the beautifully designed shoes with the athletic, comfort world?’” And just like that, Michael Toschi International was born. “I had a deluge of that sensation, ‘I’m on my own. My own money, my own ideas.’ I knew how to do all the jobs of the team, but I always had a team. I used all my money to do everything. I got to the point where I used to sleep in rental cars. I was too cheap; a hotel room was a waste of $150 bucks. I was trying to build my dream from scratch, not somebody else’s.”
After more than 20 years in the luxury shoe space, which now includes men’s accessories and outwear, Toschi also has a new baby on board: Luv footwear, a donation venture in partnership with the Make A Wish Foundation. Based on the best-selling shoe category of all time—ballet flats—Toschi has created bright skimmers that are infinitely collectible and wearable. While the price point and simplicity of Luvs looks mismatched to sister products, Toschi points to the complexity of crafting such effortlessness. “It’s the most difficult shoe I’ve ever made in my life because there’s only two pieces,” he says—two pieces that have to work in perfect harmony to meet the unyielding expectations of quality and beauty for their designer.
Perhaps the most interesting part of Toschi’s story is that since that day in 1997, the California company has always held the coveted stature of an Italian label. Although the science and aesthetics of the shoes are impressive, Toschi’s commitment to 100-percent Italian production in a time of cheap global outsourcing is what truly differentiates the brand.
As Toschi explains, “I’m a relationship type of person; if I fall in love with you, you’re stuck with me forever. I buy my boxes from this one guy in this one tiny place. And he makes mistakes and he’s always late because he fights with his wife too much, but he’s my box guy. I’ve been encouraged to leave Italy because I could make my product a lot less expensive … but you’re going to lose the magic. I think there’s a lot of magic in my product.” We couldn’t agree more.
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