If the shoe fits: creating an inclusive designer shoe collection with the transgender community

Zalando enjoys a unique and influential position, serving around 50 million customers across 25 countries, and working with some of the most inspiring brands globally. We encourage the brands and partners in our marketplace to offer an assortment that’s inclusive and representative. We want to present products to our customers that are designed by or in collaboration with underrepresented communities. Our explicit commitment is to become the European e-commerce partner of choice for brands and retailers that serve or stem from underrepresented groups by 2025.

Melika Sasani, Senior Consumer PR Manager for the Nordics, tells us about her role in the “Walk a Mile” project, stemming from Zalando’s origins as an online footwear company and making our offering more inclusive.

Hi Melika, what’s your role at Zalando?

I’m working in the communications department at Zalando. We’re in direct contact with external audiences, like the press, to give insights into Zalando’s business strategy, our culture and assortment. As the Senior Consumer PR Manager Nordics, I’m the spokesperson for Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway on fashion topics in particular.

What D&I challenges are you and your team solving at the moment?

In our team we’re committed to ensuring an inclusive approach through the topics we’re engaging on with our audiences. More specifically, this year we’re raising awareness for projects and events that will be focusing on D&I aspects such as Adaptive Fashion but also other kinds of aspects of diversity to share with our customers, peers and partners.

What project have you been working on in 2023?

In 2023, I worked on a size-inclusive designer footwear collection called “Walk a Mile” featuring 14 styles in sizes ranging from 35 to 46. For this project, Zalando supported seven designer brands in a bid to address the industry-wide challenge of accessing larger shoe molds. By providing them with investments to create new molds for fringe sizes, we help the brands continue to create size-inclusive collections independently from Zalando in the future. Hopefully, other brands will become inspired by the capsule collection and feel encouraged to do the same.

How did this project come about?

The project began as a result of our ongoing partnership with Helsinki Pride, which began in 2020. During a meeting with the organization, I held a brainstorming session focusing on how the company could go further in making a positive impact for the community. This conversation led to an insightful observation - that many transgender people have a hard time finding shoes in their sizes.

Being born with feet beyond the sample size shouldn’t restrict anyone from the joy of owning truly beautiful footwear. This problem extends beyond the queer community to cis women with larger feet and cis men with gender fluid style, and was a wake-up call for Zalando as a brand to take action.

We worked with members of the community ensuring hands-on involvement and communication throughout all aspects of the project, as well as ensuring inclusive representation both in front of and behind the lens for the campaign. We were also able to use the launch as an opportunity to amplify voices affected by size-inclusive challenges.

What were some of the challenges you experienced while working on this project?

The biggest challenge we faced was that producing bigger sizes is expensive because most factories and developers are not set up to produce items in those measurements. Unless they see a clear demand, they don’t want to go out of their comfort zone of 36–42 sizes.

On top of this, brands also see a big challenge in receiving support from retail partners. They might not prioritize size inclusivity in their buying or know how to promote it properly. Without greater initiative from the wholesale landscape, it is very challenging for brands to produce size-inclusive collections to the extent that they’d like.

However, as a leading e-commerce destination, I believe Zalando has both the responsibility and the ability to play a major role in helping to shape an inclusive future, not only in the fashion industry but across society as a whole. That’s why, for the “Walk A Mile” collection, Zalando funded the production of extra-large sizes from 42 to 46 for the participating designer brands¹. As a result of this investment, each brand can continue creating inclusive footwear in these sizes for their forthcoming collections.

What aspects of your work are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of the opportunity to support people to further embrace and express themselves by providing choices that have been limited in the industry. I’m proud to have been able to amplify the voices of people and communities that are unfairly affected by restrictive sizing in fashion.

It was empowering to facilitate collaboration across the industry to highlight such an important topic at a large scale while providing a collection that addresses the problem. The inclusive footwear collection is a perfect example of the significance of partnership and dialogue between a human rights organization and a commercial operator. This type of teamwork is essential to change the industry for the better.

What are your hopes and dreams for D&I at Zalando and for the wider world?

My hope for the future is that the project will inspire other brands to follow in our footsteps. I know that the brands we worked with have started to create larger shoes as a result. This is already a huge win!

My hopes and dreams for D&I in the world is that everyone has a sense of belonging. As a Danish-Iranian growing up in Copenhagen, I especially understand the significance of representative content and role models. The significance of knowing that we’re good enough in the societies we live in. I hope this is one of many collections we’ll be working on to help make fashion inclusive for all.

¹Filling Pieces, Rejina Pyo, Holzweiler, MISBHV, Elleme, GCDS, Eckhaus Latta