Key takeaways
Loake Shoemakers, the English heritage shoemaker that has been crafting shoes in the same Northamptonshire village since 1880, is now live on Level Shoes, Dubai's home of luxury footwear.
This is a big deal: a fifth-generation family business, still made where it has always been made, landing in one of the most important luxury footwear destinations in the world. It follows Loake's appearance at Fabrik's first Paris showroom in January, and this launch stands entirely on its own, a standalone deal between Loake and Level Shoes, brokered and arranged directly by Fabrik as Loake's agent in the region.
Who is Loake?
Loake was founded in 1880 by three brothers, William, John and Thomas Loake, starting out in an outbuilding at Thomas's house on King Street in Kettering before moving to the Wood Street factory that still produces its shoes today.
Five generations and more than 140 years later, the business remains family owned: Andrew Loake passed the baton from the fourth generation to Andrew Cory, now Managing Director, continuing an association with fine, handmade footwear that has barely paused in a century and a half.
Loake specialises in Goodyear welted construction, the traditional method that allows a shoe to be resoled rather than replaced, and holds a Royal Warrant by Appointment for the manufacture of men's footwear, one of the clearest official endorsements British shoemaking can carry.
The launch
Loake's collections are now available on Level Shoes, giving customers across the UAE and the wider GCC direct access to a brand that has, until now, been far harder to find in the region outside a handful of multi-brand stockists.
For a shoemaker whose entire identity rests on construction quality and unbroken heritage rather than seasonal trend, landing on a platform built around exactly that kind of credibility is as good a fit as a launch gets.
Great work by Dario Neri, Jason West and the Fabrik team. Level Shoes has been a long-term strategic target for Loake, and we are delighted to launch with such a strong partner in the region.
Tom Turton, Head of Wholesale at Loake
Why Level Shoes
Level Shoes is not just another stockist.
Since opening its 97,000 square foot store at The Dubai Mall in 2012, the largest space in the world dedicated solely to footwear, it has built a reputation as the region's ultimate luxury shoe destination, carrying more than 250 brands across womenswear, menswear and kids, with a concierge, a cobbler and its own Sole Lounge alongside the shop floor itself.
It is part of Chalhoub Group, the family behind much of the Gulf's luxury retail infrastructure, and its own ecommerce and app now sit alongside the physical store as a genuine omnichannel destination, with the app alone driving the majority of its sales.
For a footwear brand, appearing on Level Shoes carries a level of credibility that very few other platforms in the region can offer, and it sits alongside the very brands, Prada, Louis Vuitton and dozens of others in the same tier, that Loake's heritage genuinely deserves to be positioned next to.
The GCC opportunity for heritage footwear
GCC luxury shoppers are, on average, younger and more digitally engaged than their European counterparts, and increasingly better informed about the construction and provenance behind what they buy rather than relying on logo recognition alone.
That shift plays directly into the hands of a brand like Loake, whose entire value proposition rests on a story that cannot be faked or fast-followed: a Goodyear welted shoe built the same way in the same factory since 1880 is either genuinely made that way or it isn't, and a region increasingly willing to research that difference before it buys is a genuinely favourable market for a heritage brand to enter, provided it enters through the right partner and the right platform.
Fabrik as Loake's agent in the region
Fabrik is Loake's agent in the GCC, representing the brand directly to retailers on the ground. This introduction came from that relationship: years of agent representation and market-expansion work across the region, brand after brand, building the standing that gets a call from Level Shoes answered.
That standing with GCC retail buyers is what closed this, the same relationships Fabrik uses for every wholesale client it represents in the region.
From Paris to Dubai
This launch follows on from Fabrik's first ever Paris showroom, held in Le Marais in January, at Men's Fashion Week, where Loake showed alongside three other British brands to a curated list of Middle East buyers.
Level Shoes buyers were among the curated list invited into that Paris showroom, and this launch is the direct result of the relationships built there.
It is exactly the kind of outcome a showroom is built to produce: not a week of good conversations, but a signed wholesale account that follows months later once the follow-through has been done properly.
Why this is a big deal
Heritage alone does not guarantee a GCC luxury retail placement. Level Shoes could stock any number of English or European shoemakers, and it chooses its 250-plus brands carefully rather than filling shelf space for its own sake.
Loake earning a place among them says as much about the strength of Goodyear welted construction and unbroken family ownership as a genuine point of difference in a region that increasingly values provenance, as it does about the growing appetite among GCC luxury shoppers for brands with a real story behind the product, not just a recognisable logo.
For a shoemaker that has spent 140 years quietly getting better at one thing rather than chasing trend cycles, this is the kind of validation that money alone cannot buy.
What happens after launch
Going live on Level Shoes is the visible moment, but the work that determines whether this becomes a genuine long-term account rather than a one-season listing happens afterwards: watching sell-through by style, feeding that back into stock allocation for the next order, and making sure Loake's own UK and EU channels reinforce the brand's positioning on Level Shoes rather than working against it.
A launch like this earns its place in a curated platform's assortment by performing, not simply by landing there in the first place, and that ongoing account management is as much a part of Fabrik's Wholesale & Market Expansion work as the introduction itself.
Early signs are strong. Within days of going live, Level Shoes had a dedicated in-store VM and display in place and was already seeing units move off the shop floor.
I am happy to share that Loake is now live online and the collection has launched on the shop floor. It's great that we've already seen strong customer interest, with 7 units sold in-store since Friday. We're excited about this partnership and are confident that the upcoming digital campaign will further build on this momentum.
Fatima, Senior Brand Partnerships Associate, Level Shoes
How Fabrik helped
As Loake's agent, Fabrik supported the launch across wholesale negotiation, sell-in and digital readiness, making sure Loake's first impression on Level Shoes reflected the brand's actual standing rather than treating the platform as a simple sales channel to switch on.
That included managing the buyer relationship built at the Paris showroom through to a signed agreement, and preparing Loake's own digital presence to capture the demand a launch like this generates once it goes live.
What this means for other heritage brands
Loake's Level Shoes launch is proof that a genuine heritage story, backed by the right agent and the right introduction, can open the most selective doors in GCC luxury retail.
Fabrik's Wholesale & Market Expansion pillar exists to build exactly this kind of access for British and European heritage brands, whether that starts with a showroom presence at Paris Fashion Week or ends, as this one did, with a direct placement in one of the region's most important luxury retailers, secured by Fabrik acting as the brand's own agent on the ground.
