Every Woman with Small Feet Dreams of the Brand 'FOREMOS Marco'

Factory brand "FOREMOS marco" focuses on producing shoes for small feet sizes ranging from 20.5cm to 22.5cm, with the concept of "Beautiful shoes for small feet" in mind.

Despite narrowing down the target, what is the reason to launch a specific shoe brand for small feet? We ask Kotoyo Mikami from Argento Inc. which runs FOREMOS marco.

Reducing Pain, Turning it into Gain

Let's start with the backstory behind the establishment of FOREMOS marco.

Argento Inc., behind FOREMOS marco, has been operating for about 30 years as a women's shoe manufacturer in Kobe, well-known for its shoe manufacturing.

Historically, we had always relied on orders from brands and select shops to produce our products. However, we came to feel that this model was no longer capable of providing the value that our customers were looking for. We questioned whether our customers were genuinely satisfied with receiving products that they had heard about or seen somewhere before.

When looking at the market, we noticed that despite the abundance of products available, there was a lack of shoes in smaller sizes. Not only that, but we found a lack of sophisticated shoes that looked beautiful and fit well for women who had concerns about their foot size, whether it was particularly small, narrow, or slender. With these women in mind, we decided to launch a brand dedicated to producing shoes that would cater to their needs.

Why did you limit your target demographic to 'small sizes only, from 20.5cm to 22.5cm'?

Historically, department store shoe floors had 'small shoe size corners' which catered to a certain demand. Those corners slowly disappeared as efficiency became the driving factor in manufacturing. We actually saw this as an opportunity. We thought that by utilizing e-commerce, we may be able to address this inefficiency effectively.

The concept of FOREMOS marco asserts a positive view of individual's physical attributes, stating 'The smaller the foot, the more beautiful it looks.' How was this idea born?

We believe our mission is to maximize customer satisfaction by reducing pain (i.e., the difficulty in finding small-sized shoes / limited options) and turning it into gain (i.e., providing beautiful shoes especially designed for small feet).

When we launched our brand, we actually measured over 100 people with small feet. We found that not only were their feet short, but their bones were also very delicate. Regularly sized shoes couldn't accommodate these distinctive attributes. We learned that simply downsizing regular shoes doesn't result in well-balanced shoes that fit these special foot shapes – not even children's shoe sizes would fit. Based on this finding, we thought creating a new mould based on our unique measurements could help us provide shoes that make our customers' feet look beautiful.

The clear gain elucidated through this foot measurement research, along with the fact that many older European shoes were made with a narrow 'B' width, helped bring our thoughts to life.