Out of Hours: David Frymann; Shoes a Pretty Boy

With one foot in the role of planning director at TBWALondon, and the other firmly planted in a black calf leather, matte-heeled sandal, David Frymann talks to a sensibly-shoed Ryan Watson about furious footwear, following women, and juggling strategy and killer heels as a business model.

David Frymann spends some of his time as a planning director at TBWALondon following women around as they test his luxury shoe samples. Having launched Fury, a range of female footwear in 2010, it’s been helpful, he says, having them around.

“The good thing about working in the office is that there are so many girls there and you can use them for feedback,” he states, as he takes me through a selection of the high-end designs. In the mix is a mushroom court shoe; a peep-toe wedge; a black calf leather, matte-heeled sandal; and a white python-skin ankle boot.

“I’ve always been a big fan of python skin, so it’s no surprise that it features in the range in black and white separately. You don’t often see white python boots and they’re a bit of a head turner,” he adds. All the designs are very different but share consistent features such as an origami swallow branding and signature zip pull.

Frymann’s female agency peers have actually been a major influence in aligning his brand’s stance as a result of their reactions to the designs. Having been with TBWA for 12 years (previously at the Manchester office for five of those) Frymann’s strategy planning has also been a big help in getting the business off the ground. “I put my planning skills to the test and started talking to the girls,” he says. “After showing them a load of shoes, the feeling was that they thought they were fierce.”

After several ‘consultation sessions’, Frymann and his business partner, shoe designer Lisen Magnusson, decided on the name Fury and the ‘fierce luxury footwear’ tagline and haven’t looked back since. Launching the brand two years ago, Frymann now spends Tuesday to Friday at the agency while Magnusson works on the shoes full-time.

And when he’s not at TBWA, the rest of Frymann’s week is spent galvanising Fury’s brand activity which, he’s discovered, has been an eye-opening experience. “For our first shoot, we burned one of our flagship lines. I ended up buying this garden weed spray unit, filling it with mineral oil and blasting a spray out in the back garden,” he recalls. “It didn’t light at all, because it was the wrong stuff, but I’d read about it on a fire-breathing website.”

“We went through quite a few shoes before we got the perfect shot and that’s the other interesting thing about it, it’s so broad. The things you have to become an expert on, like how the hell do you burn a shoe? What fuel do you use? I went through quite a few different fuels before I found IsoPro fuel alcohol… that’s the one to use.”

Frymann assures us that there’ll be plenty more examples of “furious behaviour” and has used content from the initial shoot to kick-start and populate Fury’s social media presence. “I think I always wanted to get to this stage,” he adds, “to be living out my planning principles through my own brand. But it’s amazing what you have to know and absorb information-wise.”

Another new aspect for the planner has been pricing, and the current shoes range from £350 to £550. “It sounds expensive, but when you look around it’s actually not that bad. Shoes are just generally expensive,” he says. As for Fury’s target market, Frymann sees high-end boutiques, and the feet of strong, confident women, as the place for Magnusson’s designs. “They’re for the wannabe Rihanna,” he states, “for someone with a degree of control and power who has a bit of feistiness about her, or that fierce side that wants to come out.”

Although all the styles Frymann has laid out on the table in front of me are only size five-and-a-half samples, it’s clear his plans for Fury are limitless. Since pairing with a Portugal-based factory during a three-month sabbatical from TBWA, he continues to work his holidays around international trade shows and seasonal sales windows in cities such as Milan, Düsseldorf and Gothenburg. The shoes are currently being sold in Stockholm and London, with a showroom in Covent Garden, and will be exhibiting at the Premiere Classe show during Paris Fashion Week this Autumn.

Being the face of a brand has seen him mixing in new social circles, too, which is all part of the job – “right through to going to the Milan trade show after-parties, and going ‘wow, suddenly I’m in a world of fashion’.”

While the women at the agency will continue to aid in inspiring the brand behaviour, eventually he’d like to move further afield. “I’ve thought about sending a pair to Russell Brand,” he concludes. “It’d be interesting having a predominantly female brand being worn by someone like him. Even Keith Richards or Mick Jagger.”

www.showmefury.com