Kelly Shapiro, Entertainment Attorney [RADIO INTERVIEW]

Kelly Shapiro, Entertainment Attorney

LASM x TDR: Trip Digital Radio, Sound Art Expression presents L.A STYLE Magazine. What’s up ladies? What’s up! Cool in. Cool in. TizThaTime in the building. Raven Dave Ashley in the building. There’s a lot of estrogen up in here that we gotta deal. Yes, indeed. Tricia, what’s going on? I think we got to guests. An important guest… We do. An amazing guests. I like to introduce Kelly. How are you today Kelly? Kelly. You got it. Kelly is a powerhouse. Man, a boss.Shapiro is how you pronounce your last name, right? Kelly Shapiro?

LASM x TDR: It is beautiful. So, you are such an inspiration to women everywhere. I mean, you’re successful. You’re a boss babe, lawyer, representing this bomb shoe brand. Everybody’s about to find out about, with aerospace technology behind it. So bringing something seriously to the table. But thank you for being here with us today and taking the time. So happy to talk with you and know about these shoes. So how are you doing tonight?

Kelly Shapiro: I’m doing great. I’m very happy to be here.

LASM x TDR: Amazing. So we also have Marqueeda here with us. How are you doing Marqueeda Monet? Doing good. How you guys doing? Yes indeed. So Kelly, tell us a little bit about your journey, where you’re from and how you found this amazing shoe brand Thesis Couture.

Kelly Shapiro: Yes. Well, I’m Kelly’s Shapiro. I’m actually, I’m a rare native L.A’er. I was born and raised in Formosa beach. My mom still lives in the house I grew up in, but I grew up here, went to college here, go Trojans. But then I went straight at 21 to law school in Boston to go to Harvard law school. And I started my career on the east coast. And I knew I wanted to be a corporate lawyer by day, which I became, but I always did pro bono, entertainment law for the arts. So, just dealing with different organizations such as Philadelphia Volunteer lawyers for the arts and other sets organizations like now in California, lawyers for the arts. But I started I started my career in Philly. I think I mentioned that. And I happen to…

LASM x TDR: We love it. Somebody’s with the Philly right now.

Kelly Shapiro: …I love Philadelphia. I grew up in Hermosa, and I love Hermosa. I love the beach, but Philadelphia is still to this day, the only city that has ever hugged me back. I love Philadelphia. I’ll always love it. And when I started to live there, I first summered there in 2004. My neighbor happened to be my buddy Amir. Well, you guys know him as Questlove. And so, but I was just their nerdy lawyer friend that would advise them on occasion. But 5 to 10 years later when I finally corporate America and thought I was ready to hang my own shingle. And so the law offices of Kelly de Shapiro were born in January, 2015 and that’s why a bunch of people, including some of the roots members and their associates and whatnot, I said, well, great. You can represent me for real now. And it was so organic. So all my clients are all, usually there’s some Philly connection. It’s always a magical Philly connection. And so anywho I, so half of my clients are entertainment behalf or tech startups and that’s where thesis couture comes in. Because I was moderating a panel about successful startups. And it was a panel with investors and founders and then a panel on startup founders. And Dolly Singh, the founder of thesis couture was on that panel. I was moderating it and I was like, what are you doing? You’re re engineering this little high heel using rocket science and aerospace engineering, come again? And so I, she said, well, let’s stay in touch. I want to do some focus groups with you and your peers. And because she’s a former Space X and Oculus executive. So she essentially poach all of these people who are literally space, I have an astronaut I work with. I have a, literally a rocket scientist to engineers. And then of course we have the shoe people who are beautiful designers. And so they all came together to raise sickly re engineer the high heel because there’s been no innovation since basically high heels were really invented for mass marketing. So instead of having the traditional metal shank in the high heel that all heels have with theirs, and that’s why you’re typically over.

LASM x TDR: Would you say a man invented those shoes?

Kelly Shapiro: Well, yeah.

LASM x TDR: Who do they have in mind?

Kelly Shapiro: So it was just designed, so basically right now there’s no engineering involved. They just have a picture of a sexy shoe that’s usually they just design to make women’s sexual just objects. They don’t care about, can you walk in them? Are you going to hurt yourself forever just to make me excited for two seconds?

LASM x TDR: Pull yourself, why don’t you?

Kelly Shapiro: Thanks you. Literally. Well, you know what…

LASM x TDR: Exactly. So eternal.

Kelly Shapiro: Do you know what? I’m Kristen Louis Vuitton apparently said, and I’m sure this is out there, but he said, not only does he know that his shoes hurt, but women like it. Right! Friends, what are we doing? And so our heels, literally, because there’s two patents on that internal architecture. And how the whole story started was with Dolly was walking around the campus of Space X, which is huge. And her feet were killing her because he’s walking around on foreign stilettos and around these rockets. And I was like, all of this innovation and my shoes are crap, but yet she paid thousands of dollars. So that’s where the journey started. And so it turns out those focus groups and didn’t happen. She asked me to come in house to the company, which I gladly accepted. And that was three years ago when we just had a 3D printed part and now we have shoes and our, and we launch actually in this with a wonderful debut designed that you both tried on. And I’d love to hear what you thought because you can tell your center of gravity is you actually have one now. You’re not fighting gravity.

LASM x TDR: Exactly.I would say…

Kelly Shapiro: Oh. You’ve been raising your hands. [Laughs]

LASM x TDR: Just what do you have to say, mam.

Kelly Shapiro: Do you want to them on?

LASM x TDR: Man. No. How does it work? Because it looks the same as a regular heel to me.

Kelly Shapiro: Right. So, it’s inside. If break this apart, if you break out any other shoe, you’ll get cardboard and then the Shank, it’s a metal shank that, there’s no, you’re just, that’s why women are wobbling because you’re just literally robbing, wobbling on this little metal shank.

LASM x TDR: No credibility.

Kelly Shapiro: Instead of that, ours is, we should go to the website after this, but you can see there’s three parts in here. You have the heel, then our shank and then the platform. And they, it’s using this material that I’m not at the mechanical engineers, I’m a lawyer. I was told there’d be no math. But there’s, so there’s two patents on here. So that’s what you’re not seeing is the internal architects, internal architecture in here. That’s why you’re like, it looks the same because they do look the same and you can be on our heels far longer than any other high heel.

LASM x TDR: I want to hear what you have to say…  would say that it’s definitely based on when I tried them on and how it felt walking around in them. How leveled I felt. I mean, it’s fashion innovation at its finest because it reminded me of virtual reality and how the first time I went to road show reality, I didn’t understand how I knew something was something, but it was like, I felt different, like it didn’t feel real. So I’m in these shoes and I’m like, I know that these are four inches, but it doesn’t feel like…

Kelly Shapiro: It is a virtual reality. Unless you go into the mall and see those shoes.

LASM x TDR: …it’s four inches. It’s like I felt, it felt like a more comfortable shoe that’s typically not sexy because it’s not four inches. And I’m like, I don’t want to wear this shoe. But anyway, the point is that they were four inches. They look sexy and they felt comfortable, which was tripping me out a little bit.

LASM: Absolutely.

Kelly Shapiro: Yeah. Most of the women are like, they’re perplex when they first put them on because we’re not used to being kind of locked in like your posture better. It’s really remarkable. And that’s what I’m really proud to be a part of the company. And of course, it’s a female founder, CEO. She’s a mother of four. hello. Yes, yes.

LASM x TDR: Working mom. Markeeda, how did you feel about these shoes when you try them on?  Well, no joke because I’m going to keep it real, right? No joke. I literally had to be reminded by one of the execs Theresa, that it’s like a stiletto. Like no joke because I was like, oh yeah, it’s a stiletto. Like, Oh yeah, I was walking around in it like filling myself a little bit. Like I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t really feeling myself. I’m like, okay, she’s cute. Her feet look really cute. And I was just like walking around and then she was asking me, she was like, how do they feel like she really wanted my honest opinion. And she said, I was like, it feels really good. Like it’s really nice. And I said, I thought that I may slide through because of the opening it being a sandal, it being an open toe. And she was like, because it’s a stiletto and when she said it’s a stiletto, I literally had to sit down, look at the heel and remind myself you’re walking in like, how many inches is this?

Kelly Shapiro: Four.

LASM x TDR: Okay. So see you have the flexibility, watch this, watch this. You have the flexibility. You don’t have that steel rod in there or whatever that is. And we still kept our sexy. That’s what I’m talking about.

Kelly Shapiro: It shouldn’t, I think our first tag line was style without sacrifice. Yeah. But it’s amazing. And can we say how we met briefly? How, why I came on here?

LASM x TDR: Yeah, absolutely. So I make Kelly at a panel discuss, she was a guest speaker at a panel discussion for the Los Angeles Latino Chamber of Commerce and she was talking about the brand and just innovation and…

Kelly Shapiro: And venture capital venture. So venture capital back and I really speak a lot about getting more women and minorities into entrepreneurship and don’t be scared of venture capital. It is for us. Even though we have these dire stats on the amount of venture capital going to people of color and women, but it’s getting better and you have to keep pushing because we’re going to be the next innovators.

LASM x TDR: Yeah. Do your research, get the plan together and putting in the right hands and don’t take no for answer.

Kelly Shapiro: Oh, never.

LASM x TDR: Before we close, I want to know if you could give us the inside scoop of maybe when the next shoe design is going to come out. And if not, where we should follow to find out and how audiences could really stay in tune with that with the price mark may be just so they could become a fan and buy these shoes also.

Kelly Shapiro: Absolutely. Well here’s the scoop. You go to thesis couture’s Instagram page and you look out for updates. And you should also sign up for the newsletter and that’s the people who are on that list. You guys get the ones because there’s only a short window when you can buy them and then that list is closed. Like you can’t buy the shoes that you try it on ever again. And they’re numbered actually as in like, we married the the Tesla model S roll out so you pay for them ahead of time and they roll out as a front of the factory. So those won’t be sold again. And so the new capsule collection is coming out soon. And also a wedding shoe. Yes.

LASM x TDR: And the price point?

Kelly Shapiro: They should be between 400-600 ish. That debut design was 975. It’s in the luxury market. But…

LASM x TDR: But they’re worth it. They’re worth it.

Kelly Shapiro: …or you can wear them literally like all day, especially if it’s at your wedding. You can wear that.

LASM x TDR: That’s what I was going to ask. What is the ability to stay on them? I mean to me that’s like, that’s like walking on a still so… A cloud.

Kelly Shapiro: We’ve had we…

LASM x TDR: Like it’s a cloud.

Kelly Shapiro: Yeah.

LASM x TDR: Yeah. It’s NASA. It’s like NASA. I see your face. You’re smiling like…  you’re smiling. We have a problem.

Kelly Shapiro: We had independent testing and which is still going on. But we had lab tests and stuff and I’ve worn them a lot. But we had a bride say she warm the entire day. We’ve had this great but no follow the Instagram, they post sometimes testimonials on there.

LASM x TDR: Congratulations. That’s awesome.

Kelly Shapiro: Yeah. And I love it because I can use my entertainment connections through to that side to help with the fun side of the shoe company when we need. The models and all these amazing photographers and all these things. But, and also, can I shout out my Instagram?I’ll talk about all my clients including thesis couture. Malibu Kelly, obviously. That’s my Instagram. It’s Malibu Kelly. So yeah, I post everything about my clients. I represent so many amazing artists and different companies and startup tech apps. The newest APP that you need to know and download, especially. Yeah. I just trust me, I give you good information.

LASM x TDR: Amazing. Thank you so much Kelly.

Kelly Shapiro: Thanks for for having me. This was fun.

LASM x TDR: There you have trip digital radio. L.A STYLE Magazine. Collabo, so excited.