They are the most famous black ankle boots of the decade, allegedly worn by O.J. Simpson and captured as such in 31 photos shown at Simpson’s civil trial in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
The boots go by a fancy Italian name over which some still do stumble.
But whether shoppers can say the name or not, Bruno Magli (pronounced MAH-lee) shoes have been enjoying a boost in popularity.
As soon as Bruno Magli was mentioned in the criminal trial as the brand of shoes that made bloody footprints at the crime scene in Brentwood, the Southern California Bruno Magli stores started getting calls and lookers, said Carlos Sanchez, West Coast manager for Frank More stores, the lone Bruno Magli retailer in California.
But no serious buyers at first, he said.
“It was in the back, in our clearance section,” he said. “People would come in and say, ‘Where is the shoe?’ and we’d go, ‘What shoe?’
“They’d say, ‘The O.J. shoe.’ “
Of all those who asked about that particular shoe, the Lorenzo, Sanchez remembers two the most: Ronald Goldman’s parents. “Fred Goldman and his wife came in quietly to the South Coast Plaza store [in Costa Mesa) one day after the [criminal) trial began and asked us if we had the shoe. We showed it to them and they looked at it.”
The Lorenzo had been a slow mover. Manufacture stopped in late 1992, and Frank More discounted it from $235 to $159.
But in what Sanchez calls a weird twist, the Lorenzo started moving – and finally sold out – only after Simpson testified in the civil trial that he never owned them because they were “ugly.”
The Lorenzo was a sleek, understated boot style. It was a calfskin leather or nubuck lace-up urban hiking ankle boot with a polyurethane lug sole, Sanchez said.
The companies Frank More and Bruno Magli have tried to keep the unexpected association to the Simpson trial low-key, their spokespeople never volunteering information or seeking publicity and always answering questions cautiously and politely. South Florida Bruno Magli stores, in Boca Raton and Bal Harbour, refuse to comment, referring media inquiries to the central office.
“You can imagine how many calls we get about this,” Bruno Magli spokeswoman Jill Eisenstadt said from New York, her voice tinged with a bit of resignation.
