Forget 6-inch stilettos.
For Frédérique Picard, Carel’s president and chief executive officer of 16 years, power sits closer to the ground: a 2-inch trotter heel, a solid support system and the confidence to stand as you are.
That underpinned how she steered the French footwear brand through a succession of shocks, from the Gilets Jaunes protests that hit Paris retail hard to the COVID‑19 pandemic, without losing sight of what women actually need from their shoes or their careers.
Picard began her career at “a time when having children in an extremely competitive company was not easy at all,” and her experience in hard-charging corporate cultures includes a 12-year stint at L’Oréal and a managing director role at French fragrance house Annick Goutal.
Serendipity played a large role in her switch to entrepreneurship. During a cocktail at the Musée du Louvre, another guest brought up “an artisanal company in the leather business” that was for sale: Carel.
Charmed by its heritage and potential, Picard stepped up with a plan for the then-ailing French shoe brand and has never looked back.
From the get-go, Carel’s positioning — “a certain humility and modesty since 1952,” she said — has been a quiet rebuttal of a form of high-handedness associated with traditional luxury footwear, and Picard has burnished that since taking the helm.
Its signature is a low “trotter” heel hovering at the 2-inch mark, a height she feels supports women in “living your everyday life being beautiful,” but without risking “falling flat on your face in a meeting in front of 50 sniggering men.”
She calls Carel “a dailywear brand” with a desire “to put fun into every day,” from a date to “a meeting to an ask for a raise.” In conversation, Carel heels come across as a metaphor for how Picard empowers women in all aspects: less posture, more agency.
Not that women’s careers are to be walked alone. Picard’s first piece of advice to women who want to lead or start a business is that “above all, don’t think you can solve everything on your own,” she said.
Indeed, Picard took over Carel with love money raised from a tight cadre of other investors and entrepreneurs, plus a bank.
What she feels the next generation should do is build a circle, pick up the phone, ask for help — and say yes to invitations.
“Always go to events, even the most dubious ones,” she joked. Who knows what can come out of a chat with a distant uncle, a friend of a friend, even a bored guest at a party — like the one who told her about Carel.
Picard has “moved past” the stage of needing the last word and focuses instead on what people on the ground are telling her — including that “what they want is not necessarily only about money.”
She feels “times have completely changed for women” and it certainly shows in Carel’s structure, with most levers now in female hands, from the executive office, studio and warehouse to finance, retail and digital. Add to that an average age between 32 and 33 across the company, and Picard paints a picture of a company where dialogue is crucial.
For her, the real challenge for tomorrow’s leaders be to combine the speed and tech fluency of the young with previous generations’ experience, including on how to wait, lest things devolve into “a jungle.”
But most of all, her North Star is “not being afraid to be yourself,” trusting your instincts and remembering that “what matters is not being original, it’s being unique.”
Everything else, including heel height, is just optics.
A version of this article appeared in the June 1 print issue of FN, as part of the “Women Who Rock” special section. On June 3, FN and Two Ten Footwear Foundation honored these women at the annual live event in New York City.
