Mia Becar Launches With Direct-to-Consumer Business Model to Sell Footwear

Rosemary Feitelberg

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SURE-FOOTED: The direct-to-consumer footwear company Mia Becar is up and running.

The West Hollywood-based company was started by Betzabe “Betsy” Gonzalez and Carolina Lujan. Aiming to establish repeat customers, Mia Becar will offer monthly drops of capsule collections to try to keep shoppers coming back. The shoes retail from $575 to $875. “We thought this was the future of a luxury shoe brand. We want to keep the brand fresh. We also wanted to be able to control our message and our story.”

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Gonzalez and Lujan were both born in Mexico and they studied shoe design and graduated from Arsutoria School in Milan in 2017. Their debut collection was inspired by the Golden Age of Hollywood and features such looks as D’Orsat pumps, peep-toe mules and stiletto booties.

Married to former New York Mets player Adrian Gonzalez, Betsy has lived in different cities over the years due to his Major League Baseball career. On the road, she noticed a need “for brands that supported noble causes, elevated women and held themselves to the highest standards.” Motivated partially by the belief that “good shoes simply make life better,” she and her cofounder Lujan visited numerous factories in Italy before starting their Italian-made footwear brand. A childhood memory is one reason she was keen to start a shoe company. During a summer trip to her homeland of Mexico, she went to a new friend’s house and “her dad was making shoes in the courtyard and that really fascinated me. That was the moment when I thought, ‘That’s so amazing how they take a piece of leather and make this finished product that is so beautiful.’ I still remember the smell of the leather and the glue. When we go to the factories now, that brings me back to that one memory.”

While her husband is not “officially retired,” he is not playing professional baseball right now. Gonzalez said, “He’s loving…”

“Being a dad,” her husband said. “I wanted to create this and he definitely supports the company, but he is not here daily.”

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