Rich Collection Italia shoe shop – Credit: Zineb Lazraq / SWNS
A daughter helped save her father’s vintage Italian shoe shop by posting about a pair of Y2K kitten heels on TikTok—and now it has lines outside the door.
For over 30 years Rachid Lazraq has owned Rich Collection Italia, but the emergence of online shopping practices, and an aging clientele, left the store in East London struggling.
Then his 25-year-old daughter noticed that a French influencer had posted about her dad’s shop as a “hidden gem”—and it gave her the idea to do the same.
She posted about the Y2K sandals in her first video on July 7, which got 300,000 views overnight on TikTok—and within days there were two-hour-long lines outside the door.
“My dad has been running this shop since before I was born, so we were all sad to see it suffering,” said Ms. Lazraq, a London journalist.
“He usually had older, regular clients, but they’d been petering out over the years.
“Now he has a whole new set of clientele, with streams of young people coming to the shop every day.”
She remembers her dad sending a message to the family group chat saying some ‘young French girls’ had come into the shop, which was unusual.
Zineb Lazraq takes down Closing sign on his shoe stop, Rich Collection Italia – SWNS
“That’s when we realized a French influencer had posted a video showcasing the Y2K kitten heels—which I didn’t even know he sold!”
“It was amazing to see.”
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“By highlighting the shoes that would appeal to people my age, we had lines out of the shop in no time.”
The climax of the shop’s turnaround was Mr. Lazraq’s ripping down his ‘Closing Sale’ sign while surrounded by applauding customers.
“It’s so small inside, we have to limit the amount of customers in the shop at any given time, but that doesn’t seem to deter people!”
Being close to retirement age, Rachid is keen to ‘go out with a bang’ at some point—and move back to his hometown.
In the meantime, the shop at 7 Hackney Road in Shoreditch may start moving into online sales to take advantage of future sales from the new, younger customer base.
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