Mandarina, the upscale internet shoe shop based in rural Angus, is ­reporting a year-on-year sales boost of 11% in the pre-Christmas period.

Based on "steady 10% growth over each of the last two years", it is aiming to breach £1 million in sales in 2015.

The online-only fashion brand, which has pioneered the use of Harris Tweed in ladies' shoes and boots, benefited from a Christmas marketing tie-up with the men's shoe specialist Shipton & Heneage.

Selling mainly to women aged 30 to 60, it is preparing to launch its 2015 spring collection, which will include "wonderful Venetian silks and floral brights along with some Moroccan silks in dazzling Dolly-Mixture colours".

Caroline Townsend, a St Andrews University graduate who founded the company in 2003 while working as a magazine editor in the Far East, told the Sunday Herald: "We had some great new styles in the collection including a range of exotic Moroccan silk pumps with diamante clips which lent a bit of Christmas sparkle.

"The flat loafer continues to be a big fashion trend and will certainly continue into 2015. This is a great shoe style for Mandarina as it lends itself well to our unique textile patterns and trims."

Townsend was based in Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam for 20 years before returning to run the business from a converted bothy near Forfar.

Working with UK designers including Peony & Sage, Emily Bond and Inchyra Linens, she attributes the international success of the shoes, priced at about £80 to £190, to the combination of the quality of the manufacturing and the daring use of high-impact materials, with Scottish tweed lines proving reliable bestsellers.

"The Harris Tweed label has global cachet, it is extremely well ­recognised and the fabric is sought after ­worldwide," said Townsend. "In Lewis and Harris, I work mainly with Donald John Mackay of Luskintyre, Catherine Campbell's Harris Tweed & Knitwear mill, and the Carloway Mill. I used to source from Kenneth Mackenzie before they were taken over and reduced their production to more limited patterns and colours. Closer to home, I use fabrics from Lovat Mill in Hawick and the Glenlyon Tweed Mill in Aberfeldy."

Mandarina shoes are made in a small family-owned factory in Thu Duc, near Ho Chi Minh City.

"All our shoes our handmade, which enables us to be very precise with the pattern placement and matching the complicated tweed grids," said Townsend. "Achieving this kind of quality and fine detail has not proved possible here in the UK or Spain, where the shoe factories are much more mechanised."