In high school, Melissa Adams Morris earned the nickname “Heels” thanks to the footwear she frequently sported. Fittingly, heels have become an integral part of her professional life through her footwear brand Mela Moore, which debuted in 2020.
While the brand – based out of the Overbrook neighborhood of Philadelphia – started with and is currently focused on footwear, Morris already has her eye on a flagship store and expansion into a luxury lifestyle brand.
Just two years old, the brand has been worn by celebrities including actor KJ Smith – whose filmography includes dozens of projects like “A Madea Family Funeral,” TV show “The Fix,” plus guest appearances on “Ozark,” “Dynasty,” and “NCIS: Los Angeles” – rapper DreamDoll, and model Eva Marcille. The latter won the third season of Tyra Banks’ show “America’s Next Top Model” in 2004.
Like her passion for high heels, Morris had dabbled in sketching her own designs over the years but didn’t start taking it seriously until around 2017. A graduate of Temple University where she studied marketing, Morris found herself integrating high heels into her professional wardrobe, whether for her marketing roles or, more frequently, for her work as a Realtor.
“It’s a conversation starter,” Morris said.
Eventually she began to wonder why she was wearing other labels when she could be wearing her own.
Throughout 2018 and 2019, she began drilling down on logistics, sketching designs and connecting with a manufacturer. Through a friend, she connected with both a manufacturer and a designer in China. The designer translated her sketches while the manufacturer produced them.
Mela Moore entered the market in July 2020. Launching a business amid the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t the plan, but Morris pressed ahead thanks to a bit of luck. She’d placed her initial shoe orders in 2019 and received them just ahead of the global shutdowns. Her goal all along was for Mela Moore to be an e-commerce business, so moving ahead didn’t come with many obstacles.
Morris self-funded the business and hopes to continue bootstrapping it for the foreseeable future, though she has been approached about investment opportunities, she said.
More than designing “fun, funky” shoes, Morris wants to empower the wearers. Her trademarked slogan, “Step into your purpose” is emblazoned on the soles of some shoes and will also be the name of the podcast she plans to launch next year focused on sharing her story and the stories of other businesswomen.
The launch will coincide with a new shoe line and a change in manufacturing from China to Italy. The Italian-made line is expected to debut next fall with a focus on boots. She expects most of those designs to have a heel, but to introduce a pair without.
“It'll be fashionable, but it won't be a stiletto,” she said.
To hone in on the new vision, Morris applied for and was accepted into the 2022 cohort of the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, which is based out of Macy’s in Center City.
Her designs currently span five shoes, a few of which will be discontinued as she phases from one manufacturer to another. Best sellers like the Garden of Eden ($150) shoe – a red stiletto with a strap that snakes up the calf – and the As If ($110) slipper heel – adorned with pink ostrich feathers – will remain on offer, but they might undergo an update.
Going forward, Morris anticipates dropping collections seasonally and then releasing a shoe in the interim periods.
While sales are exclusively e-commerce, Morris in the next two to four years would like to launch a flagship store.
Moore is also looking to branch her sales from the United States to international locales where she’s seen demand, particularly in the Dominican Republic and England.
“I'm definitely trying to figure out how I will be able to tap into that demographic,” she said.
As with her desire to empower, Morris wants the line to be inclusive and is working to create wide-calf-friendly designs and sizing for her forthcoming boots. “One of the things that a lot of women in the African American community were coming to me and they were saying they were having a problem with was thigh high boots fitting their calves and thighs,” Morris said.
As she grows Mela Moore, Morris hopes to expand it into a lifestyle brand complete with children’s shoes, outerwear, handbags and home décor. Men’s shoes may eventually factor into the equation, as well.
What’s your design inspiration?
My out of the box designs, that's just something that's always kind of been in me. My sister has always been out of the box and she would always watch “Clueless” so I would get a lot of fashion inspiration from my older sister. And then my aunts have always been really into this group called Vanity 6. They were hot girls in the ‘80s and out of the box, and they never followed the fashion trends, but they were super popular. So I would always go back and look at pictures, old jackets and stuff they still have and kind of get inspiration from that as well.
