For Laura Villasenin, product has always come first. She calls Broadsheet on a Tuesday afternoon from her home town of Galicia in north-west Spain. She’s had a factory here too since 2021, when her label, Miista, launched its ready-to-wear clothes line. “It’s more like an atelier kind of space,” she clarifies. “When we decided to launch clothing, it was very important for us to create and maintain our own factory. We’d learnt with the shoes that beginnings are not easy – we needed the luxury of our own production line to experiment and take time to perfect.”
Miista has developed a cult following for its footwear – chunky leather ankle boots, glossy oxblood loafers, witchy lace-up knee-highs – which is defined by an instantly recognisable offbeat cool. These days, the label’s shoes are stocked in Office and Selfridges, as well as standalone stores in Barcelona, Paris, New York and just off the King’s Road in London. Its fanbase is as eclectic as its wares, spanning from pop icons Charli xcx, FKA twigs and Madonna to visual artists Martine Syms and Caroline Coon. That kind of status didn’t happen overnight – it has taken more than a decade of graft to get here.
Villasenin started working on her first Miista collection in 2010, having studied shoemaking at the College of Fashion in London – a city she moved to because of “the music scene and punkish, experimental ethos”.
“I was in my mid-to-late twenties, super young and keen to experiment, but product was all I knew. We had no marketing budget, but organic social growth was easier back then if you showed your process openly.”
At that point, Instagram was in its infancy: feeds were full of Juno-filter selfies and blurry photos of avocado toast, and Reels and algorithm-driven feeds were yet to be seen. Villasenin began by documenting and sharing the shoemaking process. The shoes were designed and marketed in east London – the brand still operates a small creative studio in Bethnal Green – and manufactured in Spain and Portugal, as they are today. The idea was to keep the supply chain short, using materials sourced from Europe and handicraft traditions that have been passed down over generations. “There is barely any production capability in the UK any longer,” Villasenin says.
Miista’s E8 collection, referencing the postcode where the brand spent its first five years, has become one of its most recognisable: square toes, chunky heels and exposed stitching on high-shine leather. The line is made by hand in Portugal and inspired by the east London community. Villasenin says its popularity is down to a combination of style and “design for the needs of inner-city life. You can tell it’s E8 by the rubber outsoles and memory-foam insoles.”
Miista’s popular sample sales were introduced in 2012 in London and New York, and swiftly became a ritual. “We try to do more than just shopping. We have DJ sets – VTSS played at our last London one. They’re a way to gather a crowd.” Now, the aim is to do about 12 a year around the world. Recently the label has held sales in Melbourne, Vienna and Berlin.
Now firmly a global brand, Miista still has a distinctly London edge – something Villasenin credits to its willingness “to mix elements that are not supposed to be together”. Miista’s debut clothing line follows the same ethos: stylish, but with unconventional details. “Experimenting with volume, layers and multifunctionality – I think that aesthetic definitely comes from London,” Villasenin says. “A flared heel or outsole, a Miista square toe or a multifunctional dress. And yes, lots of layering. It has always been about designing in layers. I look to the members of our crowd for inspiration – people whose work and interests span music, art and other disciplines. We tend to have a dark sense of humour and don’t take fashion too seriously”.
This year, Miista stepped firmly onto the fashion month circuit, marking the first anniversary of its Lower East Side store with a New York Fashion Week presentation featuring a live performance led by VMA-nominated choreographer Zoï Tatopoulos. For Villasenin, it all comes back to conviction.
“It’s about doing what you believe in, consistently, for a long enough period, without worrying about success at the beginning. Things take time.” And as for what’s next? Alongside plans to open new stores in Milan or Berlin in the next year, Villasenin hints that she’s drawing back to the brand’s roots. “Through dialogue with our crowd, I think there is a need for a new London space,” she says. “In the east.”
