Carlos Santana visits Brown Shoe’s offices to celebrate a decade of his shoe line
Dressed in an electric-blue vest and a white hat, Carlos Santana stopped by Brown Shoe Co.’s Clayton headquarters this afternoon where a small fashion show was held in his honor to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his shoe brand.
So your first question might be: Um, Carlos Santana has a women’s shoe line? Yes, indeed he does.
He may have been wearing sporty white shoes (with no socks), but his women’s line is full of vibrant colors — yellows and oranges and pinks — and eye-popping designs (think leopard print). And many of them have quite high heels, platforms, and wedges.
Brown Shoe, which also designs a line of shoes for Fergie, launched the legendary musician’s shoe brand 10 years ago. And in the years since, the brand has sold 8 million pairs of shoes and tallied up $400 million in retail sales, according to company officials.
A small percentage of the sales go to the Milago Foundation, a charity that Santana founded with his ex-wife in 1998 that gives grants to groups around the world working with children. To date, the shoe brand has donated about $2.5 million to the foundation.
Rick Gelber, the brand’s general manager, recalled that Brown Shoe launched Santana’s show line soon after his hit album, “Supernatural,” came out. The shoes are carried in Macy’s as well as many independent boutiques and online.
“He has transcended the celebrity brand and just become a brand,” Gelber said. “We established a niche that was high-fashion dress shoes and that now has evolved into a whole lifestyle brand.”
During the fashion show of shoes from his upcoming fall and spring collections, Santana held the hand of his wife, Cindy Blackman, who he married last year. He bopped along to the music, which he knew well because, of course, it was his own.
Afterwards, he thanked Brown Shoe employees for their work and passion. He said he wants to take Blackman to Porto Allegre in Brazil, where many of his shoes are made. He visited some of those factories several years ago when he was on tour there.
“When we went there, the floor was so pristine and clean,” he said proudly.
You hear a lot of horror stories about sweatshops, he said. “But it was completely the opposite.”
With so much fear in the world today, he said he wants to make women happy with his shoes.
“When you turn to joy, somehow fear becomes like fog in San Francisco where you can’t see your nose at 6 o’clock in the morning,” he said. “But by 12 o’clock, the sky is blue.”
There’s nothing more attractive in a woman than confidence, he said.
“When I see ladies walk with confidence in these shoes, it’s almost like they turn into an actress,” he said.
He compared it to the transformation that Michael Jackson made when he was on stage. Once he crossed onto the stage, he channeled the likes of James Brown to Marcel Marceau to Fred Astaire, Santana said.
“When you wake up in the morning, it’s OK to enter into character if you don’t like who are right now — if you’re not comfortable in your own skin,” he said. “You need to enter into — it’s not faking it — but entering into character.”
Santana stuck around for a bit to take pictures with employees and to sign some guitairs, too. He performs tonight at the Fox.