Words: Milo Radonjic
Photos: Elisa’s archive

Elisa Bruno, CEO of Level Shoes, reflects on the art of traveling beautifully, one pair of shoes at a time

We met the way all memorable encounters begin – unexpectedly, and with a certain curiosity that stayed. It was at an event in Eugene Eugene, where I noticed her across the room and asked the one I was with, almost instinctively, “Who is that?” “That’s Elisa. You’re going to love her.”

Spot on.

When I told her I was from Montenegro, she didn’t hesitate: “Oh, just across the sea, I can wave to you from my balcony in Italy.” It felt like the beginning of a conversation that had already existed somewhere.

We continued it two years later, over matcha lattes at the café inside Level Shoes in Dubai Mall, a place that feels less like a store and more like a living, breathing expression of her philosophy. Around us, her team moved like a family, laughing, filming, welcoming, selling, living. And in between it all, Elisa spoke about travel the way others speak about identity. Because for her, the two are inseparable.

“If someone were to walk in your shoes…”

“No doubt, stilettos,” she says, almost before the question lands. “They are not just shoes. They are an extension of me.”

Her life has unfolded across Milan, London, and Dubai, cities that require different rhythms, different ways of moving. “In London, you walk or take the tube. In Milan, you take taxis. In Dubai, you glide between spaces, or have a driver. But for me, the constant has always been the same, and it’s stilettos.”

Even in Rome, where cobblestones resist elegance, she insists. “I can teach people how to walk in them,” she laughs. “It’s a certain kind of masterclass!”

Travel, in her world, is not about adapting who you are, it’s about carrying it with you, unapologetically.

On discovering the new, after knowing it all

After two decades in fashion, Elisa no longer chases the obvious. “I love luxury heritage powerhouses, but what excites me the most is the unexpected.”

She speaks about emerging designers the way one speaks about discovering a new destination before it becomes known. “It’s like travel. You don’t always want the place everyone has seen. You want the one that still feels like a secret.”

“I admire Andrea Wazen and Amina Muaddi,” she says with a smile. “I have a lot of everything from both of them. Don’t ask me how many pairs of shoes, I’m not revealing the size of my closet.” She pauses, thoughtful. “I don’t buy shoes because I want to feel better. The moment you choose a pair, you already feel something. You’re not shopping to fix a mood… but somehow, in the end, it still lifts you.”

At Level Shoes, this translates into constant evolution, new names, unexpected returns, subtle discoveries that later define trends. “You don’t need to know everything. You just need to feel something when you see it.”

Arriving in Dubai, rediscovering herself

When she returned to Dubai in 2020, the world was standing still. Retail was uncertain, travel paused, human connection reduced to screens.

“I arrived during COVID,” she says. “And I remember thinking, will physical spaces still matter?”

Her answer wasn’t theoretical. It became tangible.

“Very soon we realized people don’t just come to shop anymore. They come to feel something. To connect. To belong. We transformed Level Shoes, from a space – to a place.”

Today, Level Shoes reflects that shift – cafés, conversations, moments of spontaneity. “You come for shoes, but you leave remembering people.”

She pauses, watching her team greet each other like old friends. Megan from HR walks by after participating in a TikTok that the colleagues were making. Right after her, Kadi, the store manager comes, saying he hope he won’t look like a bad guy in the video. Who would ever come up looking like a bad guy in this atmosphere? I ask to myself. “That’s the future of travel too, isn’t it? Not just places, but how they make you feel”, Elisa concludes with a wide smile.

The ritual of arriving

“I always travel in flat shoes,” she says. “But I always carry heels in my bag. Always.”

There’s a small pause, then a smile: “Because you never know!”

She describes arriving in Dubai, not as a moment of landing, but of becoming. “I changed into my heels, and I didn’t just arrive. I entered. I stepped into the version of myself that belongs here. I came home.”

For Elisa, shoes are not about completing an outfit. They are about defining a state of mind.

“You don’t dress from the top down. You start from the ground. From how you want to feel. The rest follows. If you do it differently, it can still work, but will it be comfortable?”

Not on shopping, but on feeling

“We don’t buy shoes to feel better,” she insists. “But somehow, they still make us feel something.”

She compares them to tattoos, markers of moments, emotions, versions of yourself. “You don’t always plan it. You see something, and it speaks to you. That moment, that’s what you’re buying”, she says. “I don’t believe in so called ‘retail therapies’, I believe that every purchase defines a moment in time – you bought those shoes, because they made you feel something special the moment you saw them”, she said, and I couldn’t agree more.

A shade of caramel reminds her of Europe. A silhouette recalls a city. A pair of shoes becomes a memory before it even leaves the store.

“Travel does the same thing,” she says. “You collect feelings, not things.”

Dubai in heels, and without them

In heels, her Dubai is polished, precise. It is about D3 days and DIFC evenings. “Even if the heel gets stuck in an escalator,” she laughs, “we still go.”

Without them? A different rhythm emerges.

“Do I love sneakers? For commuting – yes.” She laughs again, and I join loudly. Few customers look at us, and we all feel at home.

Hiking in Hatta, escaping into Fujairah, moving through landscapes where fashion disappears and nature takes over. “Even then, I choose sneakers in nude tones,” she smiles. “So, the dust becomes part of them, thus not visible.”

The barefoot memory of home

When she speaks about Puglia, her voice softens.

“It’s very rustic. And I hope it stays that way.”

She describes returning from the beach at sunset, stepping barefoot onto warm stone, the kind that holds the heat of the day. “And then suddenly, as the sun disappears, it turns cool. You feel everything.”

It’s not luxury in the conventional sense. It’s something deeper and it is sensory, grounding, real.

“If I could bring one thing from Italy to everywhere I live,” she says, “it would be that feeling.”

Italy, the ‘heel’ of the ‘boot’ and destiny

“I come from the heel of Italy,” she smiles. “So maybe the stilettos were always meant to happen.”

There’s something poetic in it, leading the world’s largest luxury footwear destination, coming from a country geographically shaped like a shoe, from the very part that defines its elegance.

“It’s karma,” she says simply. “It was meant to be, I had to get this job!”

Packing, moving, becoming

“I pack fast,” she says. “Half the suitcase is shoes. The other half, whatever feels essential for that specific journey.”

Fashion weeks define her travel rhythm. The outfit stays simple, often black. but the shoes change constantly. “They’re in the car, in the bag, always ready. I change them between shows.”

She smiles: “I’m in the best business.”

Naples, or the beauty of contradiction

If she had to choose one place, it wouldn’t be the obvious.

“Naples,” she says. “It has deep and loud soul.”

It’s chaotic, emotional, unpredictable. “There’s a tension to it, a slight uncertainty, a kind of intensity in a good way. And it hugs you.”

She studied there, by the sea, exploring the city beyond the surface. “It’s past, present, and future at the same time.”

And the shoes for Naples? “Something understated. Let the city speak. People of Naples know fashion better than anyone else. But no heels, not in Naples!”

On sound, memory, and the future of experience

Elisa is already thinking beyond what we see, into what we hear.

“Sound is the next language,” she says, describing “Sound of Design,” an initiative launched during Milan Design Week. “Not just music, but sound overall. The background, the atmosphere, the things you don’t consciously notice but that shape how you feel.”

Like travel, like a place, like a moment, it’s often the intangible that stays with you.

The scent of home(s)

Italy smells like freshly baked bread.

“My grandfather was a baker,” she says. “I grew up waking up to that smell, flour, warmth, the oven already alive before the day began.”

Dubai is different.

“It’s the morning on Jumeirah Beach Road. A kind of haze, sea salt and sand, but soft. The colors are blurred and misty, and somehow that becomes a scent.”

Two homes. Two atmospheres. Two identities that coexist.

Some people travel to discover the world. Others travel to define themselves within it. Elisa Bruno does both, but always in heels, always in motion, always exactly where she’s meant to be.