Rising designer Chiso Osuji wears many hats, between working a corporate consulting job and running her up-and-coming luxury brand Zena Ziora as a one-woman team.

Inspired by her matrilineal Nigerian heritage, Osuji designs elegant women’s dress shoes crafted in Le Marche, Italy, with leather, silk, satin and signature Majorca pearls: “It’s like jewelry for your feet,” Osuji told FN.

Take, for example, the Phillippa stiletto mule featuring a baguette crystal bow on the vamp and a pearl strap across the foot. Each style takes its name from a woman in Osuji’s family, while the name of the brand itself comes from the Igbo phrase translating to “show the world.”

Osuji considers the pricing to be entry level for the luxury market, with the Phillippa priced at $675, for example. All of the styles are crafted in Italy with a cut-no-corners ethos; the founder was inspired to build her brand when she noticed price hikes in luxury brands around 2020 while quality deteriorated.

Zena Ziora’s core styles are four-inch heels — that’s Osuji’s personal go-to — but the brand recently released the Signet collection featuring kitten heel and flat options. The kitten heels have been well-received, Osuji explained, as they still manage to capture the sleek sexiness of the soaring four-inch option.

Osuji is a longtime lover of fashion and specifically footwear, pivoting to the industry from a background in engineering. Her brand officially launched in October 2022, then Osuji enrolled in The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania for an MBA, which she completed while getting the brand off the ground.

Osuji has already found a few retail partners. She landed her first placement, the Philadelphia luxury department store Boyds, during her MBA program. Then Nordstrom and Harvey Nichols Kuwait followed suit, with more yet-to-be-named retailers in the pipeline.

Describing the Zena Ziora woman, Osuji said, “She’s someone with discernment. She dresses for her life (work, happy hours, vacation, weddings, galas, celebrations, dinners) and values how something makes her feel as much as how it looks. She’s not chasing trends but rather she’s choosing pieces that carry her through important moments.”

Reflecting on Black style icons, Osuji believes one person in particular embodies Zena Ziora. “I love Diahann Carroll. She is the epitome of elegance. I think if my brand was a woman, it would be Diahann Carroll.”

As Osuji navigates expansion, the designer is taking care to build her brand with intentionality.

Osuji shared, “What I’ve really tried to prioritize is building slowly, but correctly — really understanding my customer, making sure my production and collections are perfect, and being very thoughtful about my distribution. A big part of my decision to bootstrap (as difficult as it is) is preserving ownership and ensuring my brand can exist and stand long after any single moment of attention.”