Kelley Williamson with her dog, MacKenzie, in the Kelley Kouture showroom. (Jackie DiBartolomeo photos)
A few months after launching her own shoe brand, Kelley Williamson is bringing her heels to Henrico.
The entrepreneur opened the doors this month on a new showroom and headquarters for Kelley Kouture, her recently launched high heel footwear company.
The 2,400-square-foot space at 4323 Cox Road in Innsbrook includes a private area for trying on shoes, a conference room and event space for small gatherings and office and warehouse operations for the shoe brand’s inventory.
Williamson, who previously ran Kelley Kouture out of her home office in Richmond, is now working out of the Henrico space.
The move also brings the company’s fulfillment operations in house, after previously working with a facility in Suffolk since the April launch.
Williamson had already been looking for a local space where she could let women try on the shoes for themselves before ordering a pair, and she also realized, after a few months of working with the Suffolk facility, she wanted her fulfillment operation closer to home.
Some of the shoes from Kelley Kouture’s newest collection.
“I realized an hour-and-a-half (drive) wasn’t close enough,” Williamson said. “And what I’ve seen is as women experience the shoe, putting them on, it matters. … I want to make that easy and convenient.”
Williamson launched Kelley Kouture in April of this year. The shoe line is geared toward a more comfortable heel experience, with shoes featuring adjustable elements and supportive foot beds while keeping to an elegant style.
The shoes include a patented ‘K-heel’ design, which is split into two pieces to offer stability and footbeds that are designed to take pressure off of the ball of one’s foot, where it is often concentrated in a heeled shoe.
Williamson told BizSense earlier this year that undergoing several cancer-related surgeries, including one that removed the ball of her foot, served as inspiration to provide a more comfortable heel for women.
She currently works with four factories in Italy to produce her shoes, which range from pumps to heeled sandals and slingbacks, as well as a few pairs of flats. The company’s suede and leather shoes typically run around $600 per pair.
While the Innsbrook space is now open, Williamson said she’s still working on interior design, decking out the showroom’s various rooms in different shades of pinks and yellows to bring some life to the space.
The showroom includes a private dressing room and event and meeting spaces for guests.
When guests walk into the appointment-only showroom, they’re greeted with a small seating area with some of the brand’s latest styles. The space has a private dressing room area for customers to try on shoes in front of the mirror.
Williamson noted that while trying on shoes does not necessitate its own dressing room, she felt it can still be an intimate experience customers might want some privacy for.
Williamson said the showroom also has areas for event space, including a conference room, where guests can gather their friends for a small “salon” type of party, or for businesses to bring in catering and use the space for meetings or social events, for up to around 12 people.
“We want women to try (the shoes) on,” Williamson said. “I also wanted a space where women could come together and create space to just talk about whatever it is they’re carrying.”
As she begins taking appointments for the showroom, Williamson said she’s also working on expanding Kelley Kouture’s offerings. She plans to launch some sneakers to her collection this fall, as well as a new bootie option.
Kelley Kouture is currently a team of around five people aside from the host of manufacturers she works with in Italy. Williamson said she will likely look to hire in the coming months, including bringing on a few college-aged interns, to create more fashion industry options for students in Virginia.
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