Fashion & Beauty

Natalia Barbieri’s journey from finance to fashion

When financial trader Natalia Barbieri launched her luxury shoe brand, Bionda Castana, in 2008, she knew not a single fashion contact.

“I used to rip out the contents page of every magazine and cold call press contacts one-by-one until they agreed to meet me,” she says, calling from Paris Fashion Week. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

Natalia Barbieri

Those days of meetings in lobbies, dragging suitcases of samples, have given way to appearances in the pages of revered fashion publications, prestigious floor space at retailers like Saks and Opening Ceremony, and the attention of stars like Katy Perry and Jessica Alba. Bionda Castana has also hit the runway: most recently for Matthew Williamson’s spring 2014 show.

“It’s her unique point of view that attracted me,” says the London-based Williamson. “She knows her craft and is easy to work with, so the collaboration was effortless.”

Born to a Spanish mother and an Italian father, the London native studied international business in college and went on to work for Deutsche Bank’s foreign exchange trading floor.

“I knew my life would take a creative path around 2000, when I was thinking about my future and what made me essentially happy,” the 33-year-old says. “I knew it had to be creative and it had to revolve around shoes.”

After saving for a sample collection, Barbieri launched Bionda Castana in 2008 with business partner Jennifer Portman. Each pair of shoes in their line is handmade by cobblers in the Parabiago district of Milan, resulting in quality on par with the major heritage brands.

While opening Bionda Castana stores is her eventual dream, digital marketing and e-commerce (she will be relaunching
biondacastana.com next month) are her immediate focus.

She also recently produced and art directed, with artist Zoe Buckman and Buckman’s husband, David Schwimmer, a short fashion film, “David Gandy’s Goodnight,” starring the British model David Gandy.

Despite her many creative endeavors, Barbieri hasn’t entirely shut off her finance brain, wishing the company had more stock and cash injections. But Gandy puts her rapid success into perspective. “She’s done a tremendous job [despite] not having a name in the industry whatsoever,” he says. “She’s done an awful lot very quickly.”