Armando Cabral
The model turned entrepreneur explains how he built his footwear brand.
“I don’t think you have to be an Ivy League graduate, just a risk-taker.”
“I don’t think you have to be an Ivy League graduate, just a risk-taker,” says Armando Cabral as he considers his leap from international model to creator of an eponymous men’s footwear label. But as his daily 5:00 a.m. wake-up will attest, the path to successful entrepreneurship still asks much of those who take it. “It requires a lot of persistence, perseverance and hard work,” he concedes.
Born in the tiny West African country of Guinea-Bissau and raised in Portugal, Armando was first taken to a runway class when he was 17. (Good looks run in the family: His brother, Fernando, is also a well-known face on the modeling circuit.) By 2006, Armando and his gleaming bone structure had hit the big time, walking the catwalks for Louis Vuitton, Dior Homme and Thierry Mugler. Each...
