Aerosoles “Be Real” fall catalog
Courtesy of Aerosoles
The Aerosoles shoe brand was founded nearly 40 years ago on a then-revolutionary concept: professional women needed shoes that delivered both comfort and style. The brand was conceived during the 1987 New York City transit strike, when founder Jules Schneider watched women walking to work in sneakers with their office heels tucked in their bag. In that moment, he realized that women shouldn’t have to sacrifice style for comfort and seized the opportunity to create shoes that did both.
Aerosoles got off to a flying start, but like the mythic Icarus, it flew too high too fast. Aggressive expansion, mall overexposure and mounting operational issues eventually brought the brand crashing down in a 2017 bankruptcy that shuttered its remaining 74 stores, after peaking at roughly 200 stores. It languished in the years that followed until 2022, when American Exchange Group acquired it for an undisclosed sum.
Now with 50-year footwear veteran Jimmy Gabriel at the helm as president and chief brand officer, Aerosoles is staging a comeback—and doing it with an 80s-era direct-mail catalog marketing campaign that looks nothing like the catalogs of old. Under the creative direction of Jeremiah Hadjian, who’s worked with Ralph Lauren, Stetson, Frye, 7 for All Mankind and others, the 35-page book reads like a fashion magazine.
Entitled “Be Real,” the catalog was shot in historic Stockton, NJ, just a stone’s throw across the Delaware River from New Hope, PA, and features real people: Chef Bob of the Stockton Inn and Stockton Market manager Sophie—even Hadjian does a star turn modeling the menswear collection.
“Aerosoles has never broken from a DNA standpoint—comfort, fit, value, trust,” Gabriel said. “We were comfort before comfort was cool. What we had to do was wake it back up.”
Shot from Aerosoles “Be Real” fall catalog
Courtesy of Aerosoles
Finding Inspiration In The Archives
To rediscover design signals for the brand’s new range, Gabriel dug into the company archives for inspiration. “We studied that history to understand what made the brand shine then and figured out how to put the shine back in,” he explained. “For me, it’s always Product, Product, Product, and what we offered in the past was amazing. We just had to polish it up to make it shine once again.”
This back-to-the-roots approach isn’t far-fetched or anachronistic. It’s exactly what great heritage brands do when they need to find a new path forward. As the History Factory observed, “Brand heritage is a powerful tool that does more than just preserve history—it also transform’s a company’s past into a strategic asset for future growth, Mining the past isn’t about living it—it’s about shaping forward-thinking, authentic brand identities that drive long-term results.”
Direct Mail On The Rebound
Following the mantra that “what’s old is new again,” the company is resurrecting direct-mail catalog marketing. It’s been widely applauded by Aerosoles’ legacy customers, many of whom lost track of the brand after it stopped mailing catalogs over a decade ago. And it’s introducing Aerosoles to next-generation consumers who have grown tired of digital life and are craving more analog experiences.
“There’s something about taking a catalog and getting that heritage feel from turning the page, instead of scrolling,” Gabriel said. “We’re going back, but I wouldn’t call it ‘old school’—it’s ‘new school’ direct marketing to get in the mailbox instead of the inbox.”
As a backlash against a shopping environment that has become over digitized, automated and depersonalized, consumers—especially Gen Z— are retreating to the comfort of shopping with analog catalogs.
In Lob’s latest “State of Direct Mail” report, its survey among 2,000 consumers found that 85% of Gen Z and Millennials engage with direct mail, far more than Gen X or Boomers. Younger consumers are more likely to read DM immediately and to share interesting pieces with others. Most importantly: Gen Z and Millennials are far more likely to say they’ve made not just one but many purchases because of direct mail—29% among next-gen consumers compared to 23% for Gen X and 12% for Boomers.
“Direct mail isn’t a legacy tactic,” Ryan Ferrier, CEO of Lob stated. “It’s a modern, results-driven channel that cuts through the noise and builds real trust. In a world where everything is digital, automated and easy to ignore, we’re seeing something unexpected: a return to what feels real.”
Aerosoles is counting on its catalog to spark engagement with next-generation customers—44% said receiving direct mail from an unknown brand increases the likelihood they’ll try that brand for the very first time. And it’s poised to renew relationships with legacy customers— 81% said direct mail would influence them to re-engage with a brand they haven’t purchased from or done business with recently.
From Catalog To The Store
All the items in the “Be Real” catalog are available on the company website, but Aerosoles is banking on the catalog sending customers to its many retail partners as well, including Amazon, Zappos, Macy’s, Nordstrom, DSW, Belk and other specialty brick-and-mortar retailers.
Currently, the company’s sales are about evenly split between D2C and wholesale, but opening stores is on the drawing board. “We have great distribution today and it’s well balanced, but we don’t have any of our own stores,” Gabriel shared. “That’s a great opportunity and one we are absolutely looking at.”
“Already I have a vision of what an Aerosoles store will look like,” he added, noting that New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and up-and-coming cities like Charleston, SC are under consideration. It’s a fair assumption that the old store model is the starting point for envisioning the new one.
In bringing back the Aerosoles brand, Gabriel is focused squarely on what the customer wants—and that remains comfort combined with style at an accessible price point. “You have to know who you are, know who your customer is, listen to what she’s asking for and build directly into that,” he concluded. “A brand with history shouldn’t feel old. It should feel like it has earned the right to still be here.”
If Aerosoles can translate the analog warmth of its catalog into a modern retail footprint, it won’t just feel like it’s earned the right to still be here—it will feel like a brand that never should have left.
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