Mad About You

Steve Madden appears out of the crowd of shoppers at Fashion Show mall, looking somewhat like the rest of the masses in their T-shirts and jeans, ready for a day of shopping. Atop his head sits a baseball cap touting Syracuse University, and on his feet, a pair of his namesake shoes. After all, his $500 million company dresses millions of men and women with the Mary Janes, ballet flats, sandals and platforms that change with the season.

While Las Vegas is one of the major markets for Madden and his shoes, it's MAGIC that brings him to town to show his spring collections.

The 50-year-old Madden says he started visiting Vegas at 22 when the city had few places to find clothing. "I spilled something on my shirt so I went to buy a shirt. There was no place to buy a shirt," Madden recalled while looking around at the myriad boutiques near the Starbucks where he fueled up on his coffee fix.

Madden's foray into shoes started when he stocked shoes in the back of a New York store at age 16. By 32, he launched his eponymous line of shoes, making headlines when he made platform heels available to the masses. "We were at the right place at the right time," Madden said.

This fall, Madden launched a dress line, now in Macy's and Nordstrom, to accompany the handbags and belts already in his accessories line, taking a backward approach to the normal route that fashion designers travel.

"With dresses, I thought that dresses were fashionable and I wanted to get a piece of that," Madden said. "I thought the brand was ready to move onto new avenues."

But like most of the interview, Madden hesitates before tipping too much of his hand. "It may be a lousy business decision," he said almost as an aside. "I have an idea what I want to do with women's clothes." Madden trails off without completing his thought.

He does plan to venture into menswear in the near future, perhaps more for personal reasons than business. Right now, he's struggling with his look. "It just seems like every guy starts wearing their shirts out with the jeans," Madden said as he looked at the white V-neck T-shirt and jeans he's wearing. "It seems to be a popular late-40s look. I'm getting bored with it. I have a relatively good body. I'm stuck. I don't know what to do."

Instead of changing into the button-down shirt he brought for his impending in-store appearance, he stays in character with the white T-shirt. Of course, he designed the brown shoes that look like cowboy boots on his feet.

While timing may be everything in business as well as fashion, Madden times his arrival to his appearance to follow a runway show by Metropark. A girl hawks Madden's arrival on a megaphone as shoppers line up on a red carpet complete with velvet ropes to get his autograph on a T-shirt and a freebie with purchase (in this case, makeup bags in patent leather or silver). The store brims with young girls buying the latest patent leather boots and remnants of the Steve Madden spring collection on sale. Sales staff walk around touting his new dress collection paired with his latest shoes.

And Madden arrives just as he did for his interview, appearing seemingly out of nowhere from a crowd, looking just like the shoppers who amassed to meet him. Only his wallet is a lot fatter than theirs.