Portuguese shoes ‘climb’ Olympic mountain of exports in Italy

In a city bustling with excitement over the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, which ended on Sunday, the Portuguese footwear industry is back in Italy to try to strike gold in exports after several “very difficult” years, in which national entrepreneurs trained more in endurance than speed. Among the new brands qualifying for the women’s event, there are established ones taking the dog for a walk and even ‘changing sex’ to remain in the Olympus of the world’s largest footwear fair.

Joana Trigueiros is attending MICAM for the first time. With a degree in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, she was marketing director at Danone six years ago, after early career stints at Unilever and KPMG, when she saw the difficulties faced by a shoe brand she was a customer of as an opportunity to change careers. She opened an Instagram account, sent a message to founder Rita Correia Mendes, and paid €35,000 to become the owner of Maray.

Now, at age 44, the businesswoman says she spent many hours of her childhood and youth at Sapataria Trigueiros, the family business in Torres Vedras that was eventually inherited by her mother and aunt. At Maray, where her friend Sara Vicente Barreto, who has experience in mergers and acquisitions, is a minority partner (10%), she has a team of five people who design and select the leathers for the shoes, which are then produced in two factories in São João da Madeira.

In 2025, a total of 35,000 pairs came off these two production lines, which were sold in the brand’s two stores in Lisbon (Alvalade and Campo de Ourique) – the third is due to open in Cascais, where the brand originated – in multi-brand stores in Torres Vedras, Coimbra and Porto, and also online. This year, it wants to “open its doors to the world”, targeting markets such as Italy, France, Germany and Poland, which it feels are “eager for new products” and can pay, on average, €150 to €200 per pair.

With this “footwear for dynamic women who don’t need to compromise comfort to feel elegant”, as the owner of Maray sums it up, she earned €500,000 in 2025. The goal is €3.5 million, with exports accounting for 70%, and is set for five years. “I don’t want it to grow any more than that. I believe in niche brands and have worked for many years in multinationals. If it meant not having a life, I would have stayed where I was”, says Joana Trigueiros, who brought the 12 models and 40 varieties of the upcoming autumn-winter collection to Milan.

One company that did not want to stay where it had been for four decades was PC Footwear, which currently employs 50 people in Cucujães, in the municipality of Oliveira de Azeméis. Inspired by his wife’s name, Alberto Ribeiro created the Helena Mar brand in 2017, but it was only last year that it “began to take its first serious steps”, including participating in trade fairs. A year ago, he was at MICAM to introduce himself to the market; he is now back to find chain stores to sell the 90 models in his collection of women’s shoes and boots, to which he has added two wallets that he also manufactures in-house.

Last year, 4,000 pairs of this own brand left the production lines of the northern company, which specialises in private label subcontracting. They accounted for around 30% of overall turnover and were sold almost exclusively in Portugal. Mainly in two shops in Lisbon and Porto, but also online, with some initial orders coming from France, Italy and the Netherlands. Júlia Nunes is currently ‘courting’ a Japanese customer, who could be the first in this phase of international expansion, although she acknowledges that “trade fairs have changed after the pandemic and [customers] are postponing their orders”.

Recruited just over a year ago by Tiffosi, Helena Mar, now brand manager, emphasises that the owner of PC Footwear “sees everything from start to finish in the models” and that this industrial background is an asset to the brand, noting that “the toes are the most difficult part to make”. The creative plan is in the hands of an in-house designer and another who works for Ralph Lauren in the US, with a retail price of €270 for shoes and €500 for boots. She says that “the goal is not to sell a lot or to everyone, but to the right customers” and “to be in stores where [her] product is the cheapest”.

Established brands “step into” retail and turn the genre around

The Portuguese delegation at what is the world’s leading footwear fair is made up of 39 companies. Once again, entrepreneurs from a sector that last year produced 80 million pairs of shoes and contributed €854 million to Portugal’s trade balance have had to pack their bags with delays in the settlement of international promotion support, as ECO reported on Sunday — although promises have since been made that the “flow of incentives” may resume in the coming weeks.

For the 2026–2027 period, investment in international promotion will exceed €20 million and involve more than 120 companies, according to the sector’s employers’ association (APICCAPS), which leads and submits joint internationalisation projects in an industry that closed 2025 with slight growth (0.8%) in foreign sales, totalling €1.718 billion. Germany, Colombia, Denmark, Spain, the USA, France, Italy and the United Kingdom are the eight strategic markets, with 11 actions already carried out in international markets in the first two months of this year.

It was precisely here at MICAM that Lemon Jelly showed itself to the world in 2013. Then, with the troika in Portugal, the Gaia-based giant Procalçado decided to create its own fashion brand to add to Wock in the professional segment, which supplies footwear to healthcare and catering workers. Known for incorporating lemon scent into its products, last year the brand maintained its contribution of €4 million to the group led by José Pinto. It has been much higher in the past and in 2026 it will “try to maintain” this indicator.

“It is anticipated that this will not be the year of recovery because the world is in limbo. Geopolitical instability leads to a decline in consumption, and fashion is the first thing to feel the impact [of spending cuts]”, says Catarina Véstia. Exports account for 90% of total sales, with France and Germany being the main markets, followed by Canada, the US, Japan, and South Korea. However, the big news in recent months has come from the domestic market, with the opening of the first own store in the Vila do Conde outlet, which grew by €30 million and already has plans for further expansion.

The business development director stresses that Lemon Jelly is “very sensory” and that “the online [channel] is great, but it doesn’t allow you to touch and smell the product”. She plans to continue “bringing the yellow world to Portugal” with new retail spaces (in addition to multi-brand stores) which, she acknowledges, require “heavy investment and financial muscle”. On the other hand, next winter she plans to have temporary (pop-up) shops in Belgium and Austria, and to repeat the corners in the El Corte Inglés department stores in Lisbon and Vila Nova de Gaia.

Although it also has lightweight sandals, pool slippers and beach bags in its portfolio, Lemon Jelly is a brand more associated with winter. To add a few euros to its turnover in the current difficult commercial environment, it has created a complete kit for walking the dog: it includes a cape for the animal, a piece to warm the legs that fits over the boots, adjustable to all the brand’s models, a raincoat and a hat. On the other hand, for the summer of 2027, it is preparing to launch unisex models to reach male consumers.

In the same strategic vein, although opposite in terms of gender, Ovar-based Fábrica de Calçado da Mata is preparing to launch its first consistent women’s collection after 35 years, as past experiences have been for specific customers. Rui Oliveira brought a total of 120 samples of women’s footwear to Italy “due to the difficulty [it is] having in penetrating traditional men’s markets”. “It is the famous crisis with declining sales, which is common to the 16 markets in which we operate”, adds the CEO.

Last year, the company, which produces 500 pairs of shoes per day, managed to recover part of the losses it had suffered in 2024 after 2023, which had been its best year ever, with turnover reaching €7 million. In December, it closed its annual accounts with just €5 million on the Excel spreadsheet and 70 employees, 25 fewer than two years earlier. “The women’s line is a response to the decline in the men’s line and an attempt to return to previous levels”, he says. It is being well received and has even received its first order from Germany.

Although it has two own brands (Men Devotion and Woman Devotion), they account for no more than 5% of revenue. According to the spokesperson for Fábrica de Calçado da Mata, whose partner is Armando Costa (50%), the focus will continue to be on exports – which account for 99% of production, with the most significant sales in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA – and also on private labels: “We are known for being very good producers”, claims the northern businessman.

Known for his casual footwear style, Rui Oliveira will be at the MICAM stand until Tuesday showcasing three innovations that were scattered among various customers and are now grouped together in this collection: customised hand finishes, with more artisanal processes; a double layer of foam (in the assembly insole and the finishing insole); and Mata Tex, a waterproof membrane that makes the leather water-resistant and prevents water from passing through to the lining.

The CEO of Fábrica de Calçado da Mata complains that “Portugal is no longer a low-cost country” and with these innovations he hopes to raise the average price per pair ex-factory, which is around 60 euros. “If a few years ago we had been tempted to be competitive on price, there would no longer be a footwear industry in Portugal”, agrees Paulo Gonçalves, executive director of APICCAPS, speaking to journalists on the sidelines of MICAM, which kicked off this Sunday in northern Italy.

At the end of a “very difficult” year, in which this traditional sector was particularly penalised by the “completely erratic behaviour” of the US, which ended up reducing its purchases from Portugal by 12%, it was technical footwear that helped sustain foreign sales, growing 14.5% to €213 million.

On the contrary, leather footwear stagnated (0.2%) at around €1.413 billion and, with higher selling prices, led to a drop in the average price of domestic footwear exports: from €25.54 in 2024 to €25.29 in 2025. Paulo Gonçalves believes that “it’s no big deal” and is even “an absolutely concerted strategy” to diversify supply and reach new market niches.

 

(ECO travelled to Italy at the invitation of APICCAPS)