British footwear brand Terry de Havilland is planning a US retail launch with Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom later this year, according to Darren Spurling, who owns the business.
Spurling, 60, is the nephew of the late designer Terry de Havilland and runs the Newcastle-based company with his son Josh. The business has ten employees, designs in Britain and manufactures its shoes in Spain.
The move follows a rise in US online sales after recent sightings of actresses including Millie Bobby Brown and Margot Robbie wearing the brand’s shoes.
The label was founded by Terrence Higgins, who began designing shoes in 1972 and opened his King’s Road shop, Cobblers to the World, the same year. He took his trading name from a Paris phone book. “He didn’t think Higgins was a very good name for shoes,” Spurling said, “it didn’t seem exotic.”
The brand’s platform heels were worn in the 1970s by David Bowie and by customers Spurling listed as “Lulu, Cher, The Rolling Stones, Elton John”. Its Margaux wedge, named after Margaux Hemingway, has been in the collection since 1973, and the Deco heel, a five-inch sandal with metallic snakeskin trim, has been displayed at the V&A. The museum’s collection also includes a pair of his 1972 snakeskin platform shoes, given by the milliner David Shilling.
By the late 1990s the designer had moved away from the mainstream and was making bespoke shoes for customers in Camden Market. He returned to wider attention after Miu Miu, the label owned by Prada, produced shoes Spurling described as “literally exact copies, same materials, same designs”.
De Havilland pursued Prada through the courts over trademark infringement, arguing that his products were classed as art. The case did not progress far, but the publicity helped him secure licensing deals in America and Britain. Under Intellectual Property Office rules, a UK registered design must be renewed every five years and lasts a maximum of 25 years.
Spurling, who had previously sold his family’s chain of London sports shops to Blacks Leisure Group and served as managing director of surfwear brand O’Neill’s, reconnected with his uncle at a family party and began advising him on the licensing arrangements. “I helped him to buy out the licensing so that he could get the brand back, which we did in 2010,” he said. Spurling bought the company outright in 2015, when the designer was nearly 80. De Havilland died in 2019.
The pandemic followed. “In all honesty, we thought we were buggered,” Spurling said, given that the company specialised in occasion shoes. The business moved to a direct to consumer model and, in 2022, went “from nothing to doing over a million pounds” online. Spurling said that boom has since ended as consumers have become “more considered” and “more conscious” about what they buy.
He said he keeps the team small and outsources where possible because “the cost of hiring is an issue … the best way [is] to be adaptable”. The company has reintroduced 1970s designs and added matching bags and trainers, while remaining “very much focused on quality, on craftsmanship, on being slow fashion”.
Other British brands have moved in both directions on the US market. Wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd is opening its first US store in Washington, while athleisure label Tala suspended a planned £5 million US investment after a change in American tariff policy.
Spurling said the brand’s history gives it “real strong credibility”, adding: “what we need to do is make it as relevant as possible … and that’s a challenge.”
