Spanx founder Sara Blakely takes aim at the shoe industry

Sara Blakely, the creator of shapewear brand Spanx, is getting into the shoe industry. 

She is introducting a new brand called Sneex, according to Axios and other reports.

The business executive hinted in a handful of social media posts over the past week that she had a new product poised to make its official debut on Tuesday. 

Sneex said on its website that it focuses on a “luxury hybrid stiletto” that blends together sneakers and high heels. FOX Business reached out to Sneex for comment.

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“We’ve been fed the line that beauty is pain… but does it have to be?” Blakely was quoted as saying on the brand’s website. “When people ask me, why shoes, why now? I say, ‘have you ever worn high heels!?’ I’ve been dreaming of inventing comfortable high heels since I started wearing them. But I was bored with the other options in my closet. I craved a completely new kind of shoe, something that sparked playfulness and made me excited to get dressed again.”

In an Aug. 12 social media post hinting at a “new brand” from her, Blakely indicated she had been “secretly working on/dreaming about” her new product “for years.”

She once said in a 2013 interview with “60 Minutes Australia” that she “always say[s] I want to invent a comfortable stiletto … because I feel like it can be done” when asked what she wanted to do in the future.

Her new brand Sneex showed “hy-heels” with a single-strap, double-strap or wide strap online as part of a 2024 collection. The shoes, which cost several hundred dollars per pair, appear to be called The Blake, The Icon and The Tepper.

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They aim to address “all of our major pain points in high heels,” according to Blakely.

“Sneex are made at an artisanal manufacturer in Spain who handcrafts each pair of shoes,” the brand also said on its website. “A single pair of Sneex takes an average of four hours to make.”

Sneex comes nearly three years after the 2021 deal between Spanx and Blackstone for the investment company to acquire a majority stake in the shapewear brand that Blakely started in 2000.

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 12: Spanx founder and CEO Sara Blakely speaks onstage during Vanity Fair’s Founders Fair at Spring Studios on April 12, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Vanity Fair) (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Vanity Fair / Getty Images)

Blackstone closed the deal, which pegged Spanx as being worth $1.2 billion, in mid-November 2021. The two companies had first announced plans for the majority investment in October of that year.

The success of Spanx helped make Blakely a billionaire. 

Forbes reported she had a personal fortune worth $1.3 billion as of Monday evening. She first joined the three-comma club back in 2012, according to the outlet.

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