Jimmy Gabriel on Aerosoles' biggest expansion yet: ‘Within three years, I want Aerosoles to be a truly global brand’

When Jimmy Gabriel joined Aerosoles as its new president and chief brand officer in September 2024, he set out to fix the company’s women's footwear business. “We had to get the product right, edit the assortment, get back to the right balance of fashion, comfort, quality and value, and make sure Aerosoles stood for something again,” Gabriel told FashionUnited. Two years later, after completing his first mission, he is now leading the brand through its biggest expansion yet, entering menswear, kids', and handbags.

“For me, it always starts with the product and the customer. Does it make sense? Does it feel authentic to the brand? Is there a reason for it to exist?” Gabriel said. “That is the merchant in me. I don’t believe in adding categories just to say we are bigger. Every category must have a purpose, every product has to have a reason to be there, and it all has to connect back to the DNA of the brand. Build the foundation first, then grow from a position of strength.”

Aerosoles, a brand that became known in the US market for its high-fashion approach to comfort footwear, introduced its new categories in August through its fall 2026 campaign, photographed across Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Stockton, New Jersey, and New York City. The campaign also reintroduced Aerosoles as a modern lifestyle brand for today's consumer.

“The reason we launched all three rather than doing one, waiting, and then doing another was because by that point we had built the team and the infrastructure to handle it. We weren't starting from scratch. We had decades of knowledge from the women's business, strong sourcing and product-development capabilities, and a much clearer understanding of where Aerosoles could go,” Gabriel said. “I've always had a little bit of a motto: if you're going to do something, do it big. So, once we knew the women's business was moving in the right direction, I didn't see a reason to think small.”

The foundation

Aerosoles was founded in 1987 by businessman Jules Schneider following a buyout of Kenneth Cole's "What's What" division. The brand has been under American Exchange Group since 2022, alongside White Mountain and Island Surf. When Gabriel joined Aerosoles, the label already had an incredible following, he said. “What we didn't really have yet was a complete team around the business. For me, the priority was putting the right people in the right places and building a foundation we could grow from.”

Gabriel worked with Fabiana Rigamonti, creative director and head of design at Aerosoles, and brought in Tania Feo as vice president and head of sourcing and product development, Rosanna Alexander as vice president of DTC planning, and Tom Buckley as vice president of financial planning and analysis. “Once that foundation was in place, we could start looking beyond one successful shoe and build a much broader Aerosoles business. That was really the beginning of the transformation,” Gabriel said.

Going global

Gabriel sees the international markets as a whole new opportunity for Aerosoles. “My goal is very clear: within three years, I want Aerosoles to be a truly global brand,” he said, adding that “and when I say global, I don't mean we have a distributor in one country here and another country there and then call ourselves international. That's not what I mean.”

His plan, in his own words, is to build an international business to become meaningful enough that, over time, it can stand alongside the size of our domestic business. “That takes the right partners, the right product, the right pricing, and understanding that every market is a little different. You can't just take the U.S. assortment, ship it around the world, and assume it works everywhere. But the opportunity is absolutely there, and we are building it now.”

‘Wait, that's Aerosoles?’

Another task Gabriel took upon himself after joining Aerosoles was to expand its wholesale business. Until 2024, the brand was very dependent on e-commerce, he said. “Digital is still incredibly important to us, but I never believed this brand should live primarily on a website. Wholesale gives us scale, visibility, and puts the product in front of customers where they are already shopping. We have worked very hard to rebuild that business and get Aerosoles back into the right doors.”

Gabriel sees the e-commerce site as a way of introducing the brand to different consumers, pushing its creativity and designs to a new level. “Not every shoe has to be a volume shoe. There are styles that may be a little more fashion-forward, a little more directional, maybe a higher price point, or simply something that helps create excitement,” he said. “You can have the core product that drives the business, but sitting around it are those halo products that make somebody stop and say, "Wait, that's Aerosoles?" I love that reaction because it changes the perception of the entire brand.”

For him, the wholesale and e-commerce feed each other. The first gives the brand reach and scale, while the latter allows Aerosoles to test different ideas and “tell a stronger fashion story.”

As a heritage label, Aerosoles wants to keep the customer who has trusted it for decades, while welcoming a new generation of clients, Gabriel said. “For us, that means we don't walk away from what Aerosoles has always stood for. Comfort, fit, quality and value are still at the core. But the fashion, the styling, the materials, the color and the way we present the brand all must continue moving forward.”

The footwear veteran with over 50 years of experience believes it is much harder to define the Aerosoles customer by age nowadays than 10 years ago. “To me, the Aerosoles customer today is less about a demographic and much more about a woman who says, ‘I want to look good, I want to feel good, and I don't think I should have to choose between the two.’ That has really changed how we merchandise the business,” Gabriel said.

Comfort zone

“Everybody makes a comfortable shoe today,” Gabriel said. The statement is easily backed up by numbers. According to a report from Grand View Research, the global footwear market size is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.3 percent from 2025 to 2030, expected to reach 588.22 billion dollars in 2030. In the last decade, the category has been inundated with new and old brands attempting to grab a slice of the comfort pie. For Gabriel, if your whole story is, ‘We're comfortable,’ you really don't have much of a story. “It starts with the product. Always.”

“I think sometimes companies make this much more complicated than it needs to be,” Gabriel said. “Our job is to give her a great-looking shoe, make it incredibly comfortable, give her quality she can feel, and give her real value.”

“We also have something you can't manufacture overnight: more than 35 years of history and trust. But I'm a big believer that history doesn't entitle you to anything. The customer votes every day with her wallet.”

The next five years

Prior to Aerosoles, Gabriel led the development, launch, and growth of multiple footwear brands, including Coach Footwear, Calvin Klein Footwear, Frye, Taryn Rose, BCBG, Juicy Couture, and Enzo Angiolini. He also spearheaded the acquisition and transformation of Aquatalia into a growing lifestyle brand under LFUSA/Global Brands Group (GBG), where he served as president of footwear.

In his current position, he aims to take Aerosoles’ relevance to a new standard, but says that doesn’t come from chasing youth. “It comes from making great product,” he said.

“You must constantly edit. You must know what your hero products are. You must know what is driving volume, what is creating the halo around the brand, and what is simply taking up space. Every style must earn its place.”

For Gabriel, a brand’s history tells you where you came from, but it doesn't tell you where the customer is going next.

“So, five years from now, I want Aerosoles to still have all the things that made it successful for more than 35 years — comfort, quality, value, and trust — but I want it to feel completely relevant to the consumer of that moment. If we do that, we won’t just have preserved a heritage brand. We will have built the next generation of it.”