Vince Camuto

Vince Camuto is an American fashion label founded in 2005 as an eponymous footwear line and later extended into fragrance, handbags and jewelry [3]. It carries the name of its founder, the Italian-American footwear designer and executive Vince Camuto, who built the brand under his Camuto Group and framed it around a philosophy he called "affordable and accessible luxury." Within beauty, the brand is known chiefly for its fragrance line, developed under an exclusive license with Parlux Fragrances [4]. The label remains active, with the official site selling current fragrance and footwear collections.

The brand grew out of the career of Vince Camuto, born in New York City in 1936 to a family of Italian artisans. According to the company, his Italian roots and "craftsman's eye" sit at the heart of the label, and he is said to have kept his father's artisanal tools on his desk as a reminder of that heritage. Camuto first made his name in 1977, when he co-founded the women's footwear company Nine West with Jerome "Jack" Fisher, developing Brazilian factories to build it into a major American shoe business [3][6]. Nine West was sold to Jones Apparel Group in 1999 for $900 million [3].

After that sale, Camuto established the Camuto Group in 2001 with his wife, Louise Camuto, as a design, sourcing and production company [3]. The eponymous Vince Camuto brand followed in 2005, launched first as a footwear line before expanding into a broader lifestyle label.

The Vince Camuto brand sits within the Camuto Group, the company founded in 2001 that also built or managed a portfolio of footwear and fashion labels, including licensed lines for Jessica Simpson, Lucky Brand and BCBG, among others [6]. The group described itself in 2010 as a leading organization for designing and distributing women's footwear and lifestyle brands, with products sold in more than 5,400 doors worldwide.

The label is built on Camuto's shoemaking background and what he described as "affordable and accessible luxury" — elegantly designed products offered at accessible prices [5]. The company states its core principles as "style, comfort and accessible pricing" and gives its mission as "to inspire you to express your best self—one shoe at a time." The fragrance line was conceived to embody what the brand called the "Vince Camuto woman — timeless and confident," a customer wanting a scent that "goes from day to night" [4].

Vince Camuto entered fragrance through an exclusive licensing partnership with Parlux Fragrances, announced on 4 June 2010 [4]. The debut women's eau de parfum, simply named Vince Camuto, launched in September 2011 [5]. Composed by perfumer Steve DeMercado, it was built as a floral chypre, with rum absolute and osmanthus nectar at the top, a heart of Bulgarian white rose, leather and night-blooming jasmine, and a base of vanilla absolute, patchouli, amber and musk. At launch it was distributed through department stores such as Macy's, Dillard's and Bon-Ton across roughly 1,000 U.S. doors.

The Parlux collaboration grew into a range of scents for women and men, including Fiori, Femme, Homme, Amore, Bella and Solare [6]. Bella and Solare — the last two fragrances Camuto worked on — were released by Parlux in March 2015, shortly after his death.

Within the footwear industry, Camuto's work drew repeated recognition from the trade publication Footwear News: his Fisher Camuto venture was named Company of the Year in 1991, and he was inducted into the Footwear News Hall of Fame in 2001 [3]. The debut fragrance and Camuto's career were covered by trade and general press, including WWD and CNN.

The brand is active. Its founder, Vince Camuto, died at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, at age 78. Sources give slightly different dates: Wikipedia records his death as 21 January 2015, while WWD's obituary reported he "died Wednesday," 22 January 2015 — a one-day discrepancy [3][6]. The eponymous label has continued after his death: the official site sells current fragrance, footwear, handbags and jewelry, with a live seasonal campaign, and Parlux remains the fragrance licensee.