Manolo Blahnik reports its ‘best ever financial performance'

Manolo Blahnik, the luxury footwear and accessories brand, has today announced its financial results for the year ending 31 December 2022. The company reported record sales with group turnover up 69% to £102.4 million (€118.2 million) from £60.5 million (€69.9 million).

All channels experienced a strong rebound in consumer demand with store footfall returning to pre-pandemic levels and e-commerce sales up by 24% year-on-year.

During the period the company joined forces with Birkenstock on a worldwide collaboration, which sold out within hours of its launch. This excelled brand awareness and brought new customers to the brand. The collaboration, which featured two drops in March and again in June, delivered unprecedented levels of social media engagement.

The company noted that the growth in the womenswear category was fuelled by "increased interest in occasion wear and embellished designs post-pandemic", with the iconic Hangisi shoe driving sales. The menswear category also continued to grow thanks to a successful campaign that rolled out in Q4 across the UK and USA. For example, in June, the artisanal footwear label opened its first-ever men’s pop-up at the legendary department store Harrods.

Kristina Blahnik, CEO of Manolo Blahnik, commented: "We saw another record financial performance in 2022 at Manolo Blahnik Group with sales across all our channels rebounding very strongly and firmly establishing our position in the US market. 2022 was an extraordinary year of consumer demand which will naturally rebalance in 2023 given multiple macro-economic headwinds.

"In celebration of exceeding €100m Group sales for the first time in our history, we were very proud to share an exceptional bonus of over €1m with our Group employees in November 2022, recognising the hard work and dedication of our teams worldwide and their contribution to reaching this milestone."

This follows the news that the group appointed Elodie Bougenault to the position of Global Chief Commercial Officer in June to strengthen to brand's commercial ambitions. Bougenault will lead the Group’s ambitious expansion plans, with a particular focus on Asia, her specific area of expertise, in light of the Group winning a long battle for its IP in the Supreme People’s Court of China in June 2022.