There’s no business like shoe business

During a recent conversation inside a Geography Building conference room, Stuart Weitzman smiled and quoted his favorite line from his favorite poem, “If” by Rudyard Kipling. “Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”

“It’s how I live my life,” Weitzman insisted. “Don’t waste a damn second.”

He’s done anything but. Weitzman, the acclaimed designer and founder of the luxury shoe brand that bears his name, is traveling to colleges around the country to share his success story with students and inspire them to pursue their own entrepreneurial endeavors.

Weitzman visited Clark on Feb. 12, meeting faculty, students, and staff, and capping the day with a lively presentation titled “A Designer’s Entrepreneurial Journey on the Road Less Traveled” (the title taken from another favorite poem, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”) inside a packed Tilton Hall. The Long Island native recounted the path that began with him working summers in a family-owned shoe factory in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and led to the highest echelons of fashion, earning him the moniker “Shoemaker to the Stars.”

Eschewing the Tilton stage, Weitzman preferred to roam the floor, sharing stories of his adventures in the shoe trade, which included designing eye-catching footwear for the likes of Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston, and Beyoncé. He found his niche, he recalled, by studying the fashion parade on the red carpet at celebrity events and noting that while the women were clad in high-end designer dresses, they rarely wore custom-made shoes. He decided to change that.

Weitzman invested a third of his own money in a small factory and began producing luxury shoes that he initially gave away as a ploy to build his reputation among the Hollywood elite. It was a huge risk, he acknowledged, but necessary. “ ‘Risk’ is not a four-letter word,” he told the audience, many of them students from the School of Business. “It’s your best friend.”

The designer recalled some of the ad campaigns that put his company on the cultural map, with bold and eccentric visuals and the memorable tagline, “A little obsessed with shoes.” A vibrant imagination, he advised, is “a legal way to beat your competitors.”

Weitzman, who sold his company several years ago and is now retired, traced his creative inspirations that extended from Marilyn Monroe to Audrey Hepburn to Julia Roberts, whose thigh-high boots in the film “Pretty Woman” inspired a similar model he fashioned for Swift. The singer admired the boots so much that she wore them on multiple occasions on her 1989 Tour. He also designed a diamond-studded pair of sandals that retailed for $1 million and were worn by actress Laura Harring at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony, a move that proved to be “a tipping point for our company” both in sales and notoriety, he said.

“There are opportunities out there that you cannot imagine,” Weitzman counseled. “You can spot them if you pay attention.”

Throughout his presentation, Weitzman offered up a series of truisms that he referred to with a grin as “Stuisms” — lessons learned over a lifetime of creating and selling his original shoes. Among them is the power of repetition in a competitive arena: “Repeat something that’s great, and then you own it.”

Weitzman also advised audience members to become active members of the community by sharing their skills and talents — and financial resources — to do some good in the world.

A highlight of the evening occurred when Weitzman called out three Clark students to model his signature shoes, which ranged from chunky platforms to spike-heeled sandals (including a version of the famous bejeweled pair worn by Harring). All three managed to execute a graceful walk down the center aisle, teetering just a bit on five-inch heels, while earning compliments from the designer for their poise.

Prior to his appearance in Tilton, Weitzman sat for a wide-ranging interview with ClarkNow, in which he discussed his busy schedule (visits to Smith, Holyoke, and Yale were also on the week’s itinerary), historical tidbits of Haverhill, his love of ping pong, and the message of perseverance and ingenuity that he shares with young entrepreneurs. He marveled at the intelligence of the students he encounters across the country, as well as their ambition. “The philosophy is no different from school to school,” he said. “They can’t wait to get out there and start something.”

Weitzman’s talk was sponsored by the Office of the President.