For Ruthie Davis, shoe obsession started at the tender age of two when she tried on her first pair of red patent leather Mary Janes. Ruthie fell so fast and hard in love with the shoes that when the salesman went to take them off, he was confronted with the fierce glare of a baby fashionista. Little Ruthie wore the shoes out of the store and according to her mother, insisted on wearing them to bed that night.

Ruthie's love-affair with shoes has, over time, transformed into an uncompromising obsession with producing some of the most provocative footwear in the world. In 2006, Davis introduced her own brand of handcrafted Italian-made shoes. The collection is a high-style/high tech merging of the designer's personal style - referencing architecture, modernism, and future technology with a lifelong love for 1960s Italian cinema and the larger than life heroines of childhood comic books. Her shoes are innovative in form, function and materials and always radiate a sexy elegance.

At the core of Ruthie's design philosophy lies the concept of integration. She herself is more than just a designer; she has an MBA. She oversees every aspect of her company, from design to production to marketing to PR. In essence, Ruthie IS her brand. This allows her to execute her ideas without interference, and the result is a purity of product that is rare in today's marketplace.

In terms of the Footwear Industry, Ruthie has always understood where design and marketing are connected. While always keeping the her keen eye as a marketer focused on the trends of the moment, she prefers to follow her own signature vision for modern, sexy, functional design, and the results are consistently ahead of the pack collections. Always pushing things forward, the industry watches Ruthie as much as she watches the industry.

Ruthie earned her Bachelors of Liberal Arts from Bowdoin College, where she studied English and Visual Arts. After earning an MBA in Entrepreneurship from Babson Graduate School of Business, Ruthie began her career in footwear as a "Cool Hunter" at Reebok. Eventually she became Director of the Reebok Classic division, where she launched "Classic Derivatives"; reinvented versions of Reebok's classic white sneaker. The success of this concept ignited a consumer love affair with "throwback" designs in footwear. From Reebok, Ruthie moved on to become Vice President of Design and Marketing at UGG Australia in California. She repositioned the iconic sheepskin UGG boot as fashion, with updated styles and a high-profile marketing campaign that utilized a combination of Hollywood product-placement and print ads in major fashion magazines. The result was an international fashion phenomenon. After her success at UGG, Tommy Hilfiger offered Ruthie an opportunity to helm a new satellite footwear office in New York. As Vice President of Marketing and Design for Women's Footwear, Ruthie launched a new division, "Tommy Girl Shoes", aimed at the young female consumer, taking the brand towards a fresher, more fashion-forward direction.

In 2006, Ruthie launched DAVIS by Ruthie Davis. For Fall 2009, she is expanding her collection to include Ruthie Davis - the top tier of her brand.

Almost immediately upon its premiere, DAVIS by Ruthie Davis was embraced by the fashion press, celebrities and New York Fashion Week for its bold incorporation of technology, architecture and style. With her first collection, Ruthie saw her shoes featured in eclectic publications such as ELLE, Lucky, Nylon, Wallpaper and Vogue Nippon which actually mirrored the emerging universality of her fan base in the US and Internationally. To date, DAVIS by Ruthie Davis has been featured in hundreds of publications such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, InStyle, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue Italia, People, US Weekly, Ok!, In Touch, Surface, Zink, WWD, FN and many more. Ruthie also has a loyal celebrity fan base that goes back to her first collection and thrives today. Perhaps her most devoted celebrity fan is Beyonce who looked to Ruthie for that perfect shoe to launch her new futuristic image at the 2008 Condé Nast Fashion Rocks red carpet and has since worn a number of DAVIS by Ruthie Davis shoes. She and many other performers see Ruthie Davis shoes as the go-to brand for high-octane glamour that can pass the ultimate high- performance tests - walking the red carpet and dancing and singing on stage! Other celebrity fans include: Hilary Duff, Penelope Cruz, Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Michelle Williams, Avril Lavigne, Maria Bello, Lauren Conrad, Whitney Port and Kim Kardashian.

Ruthie lives and works in New York City with her husband, Innes and two dogs River and Desert.