The shoe manufacturer Arezzo & Co sells around 30 million products a year. The company, which has a production center outside of Porto Alegre in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande Do Sul, employs around 800 people at multiple facilities across the country. Arezzo & Co’s portfolio currently includes 16 brands catering to different price segments, including Schutz, Fiever, Vans, Reversa, Anacapri and the company’s jewel, Alexandre Birman.
The son of Anderson Birman, who co-founded the company with his brother Jefferson in 1972, is both Chief Executive Officer of Alexandre Birman and the creative mind behind an eponymous line of glamorous footwear sold at Net-a-Porter, Bergdorf Goodman, Luisa Via Roma , Harvey Nichols and Saks Fifth Avenue and is worn by celebrities such as Gigi Hadid. Schutz, a brand with a more distinctive style and lower price tag, operates a store on Madison Avenue in New York, as well as one in Los Angeles and one in Florida. The label is reportedly planning further expansion in the US.
FashionUnited was invited to visit Arezzo’s fully vertical manufacturing facility in Brazil, where design, sample production and manufacturing take place under one roof. Upon entering the design department, shelves of magazines, pristine white conference tables, vintage shoe photographs on the walls, and some museum-worthy shoe machines greet visitors. The company’s archives stretch back 50 years and are floor to ceiling full of shoeboxes, all with Polaroids on the front showing the contents of the boxes. By their own admission, every shoe the company has ever made is represented in the archive.
The company was named after the Italian town of Arezzo in Tuscany, famous for Michelangelo, gold and antiques. Three years ago Alexandre Birman was awarded honorary citizenship by the Italian city.
The working conditions in a Brazilian shoe factory
In a huge sewing room, rolls of leather lie tightly packed on shelves that reach under the roof, with brown tags naming their characteristics dangling from them. Mostly women, all in white coats, sit behind sewing machines loaded with spools of colored thread. They prototype models that come with a yellow or blue reference sheet with change notes, notes, and measurements. This room is exclusively for prototyping, while another facility on the premises is dedicated to production.
The shoe last is the starting point of every shoe. They are stacked in hardwood or plastic trays based on size and style. Employees use glue to attach the leather to the base of the shoe and select additional components from compartments, while others work on heels and soles with various hand tools on machines.
It’s midsummer. Yet the space is cool and airy with plenty of natural light. It is not uncommon for employees to remain with the company for many years, like the curator of the archive who began his career in the sewing workshop decades earlier. Containers with lasts, insoles, leather uppers, heels and buckles are piled up everywhere, waiting to be used. Brazil manufactures all the components of the shoes domestically, but the soles for the Alexandre Birman brand, with their higher price level, are imported from Italy.
Alexandre Birman is the jewel in Arezzo’s crown
Crossing a loading dock, we come to a set of double doors that mark the entrance to Alexandre Birman’s manufacturing facility. Inside, a delivery is ready to be shipped – shoeboxes piled high here in the distinctive shade of tea roses. The workers wear short-sleeved white jackets with ‘Alexandre Birman’ printed on the back.
In this wing, the variety of shoe models is less than in the previous facility, since the assortment is focused on high fashion and high heels. Casual slippers, lace-up shoes and rubber soles unfortunately have to stay outside. Instead, craftsmen work on slender ankle straps studded with diamonds as we pass a shelf of lasts, each with a sweeping arch and narrow toe. Golden sandals, all pointing in the same direction, resemble small statuettes. Facing them is a row of high block-heeled mules in a bold hue that matches the exact color of the piping-hot ‘cafezinho’ that Brazilians regularly drink during the workday. A sign reads in Portuguese: “We bring joy in the form of shoes”.
Much of the work is done by hand, but once the soles are attached to the stiletto heel sandals, they are placed in bins to be put through machines like luggage through an airport scanner. Signs read “Caution hot, do not touch”. A stack of insoles, nude and pink, rests toes touching on a counter next to a utility knife while two dozen more wait along the remaining length of the counter.
Webs of shiny material lie on a large digitized cutting board and are mauled by several pneumatically oscillating knives with different blade widths and lengths, which can cut through almost any thickness of material. Every available centimeter of material bears the template of an insole, and like a cookie cutter through dough, the insole is punched out and the discarded rest is collected in bins.
At the center of the plant, we first enter an office with dozens of employees in cubicles, typing on computers. Specific stations are labeled: Logistics/Invoicing; logistics/transportation; procurement management; Planning; Business development; Sustainability. On the wall are screens with maps, statistics and charts, while at the other end a carpeted area with a leather sofa, coffee table and plants offers a more intimate space for an impromptu meeting or just a screen break.
Along the corridor is an impressive cockpit, the ‘Solutions and Monitoring’ center with ten screens on which business activities are recorded like an electrocardiogram. At-a-glance problems can be predicted and supply and demand tracked, allowing HQ staff to quickly respond to inquiries from hundreds of stores and more franchises. Nothing is left to chance here.
This article was similarly published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ