Designer Profile: Kenneth Cole

Twenty years ago, Kenneth Cole had a dream to sell designer shoes. With little money and no retail space, Kenneth Cole lined up his factories in Europe and designed a collection. When he came back to the United States to sell his shoes, he realized that he needed to set himself apart from the 1100 shoes companies also selling their collections.

Kenneth Cole then came up with the idea to borrow a truck from a friend's trucking company and park it in Midtown Manhattan while selling shoes out of the back. Only problem was that the city of New York only gave out parking permits to production companies filming full length movies and utility companies such as AT&T.

Since Kenneth Cole's merchandise had nothing to do with utilities, he decided to change the company name to Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. and apply for a permit to shoot a full length film called "The Birth of Shoe Company"!

Peep Show (also available in Black), Know Who (also available in Tan) and Know How Hot
(All shoes shown above now 25% off at Candie & Dolls)

They were open for business with a director (and a camera with film), models as actresses and two NYPD officers as doormen. In two and a half days, Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. sold 40 thousand pairs of shoes and has kept on filming since!

Today, the company is still named Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. as a reminder to the "importance of resourcefulness and innovative problem solving".

Quoted from the Kenneth Cole website