 Excellent. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. My name is Kim Roblido-Diga. I am the Deputy Director of Education here at Cooper Hewitt. Thank you all for coming. Hope you had some time to frolic in our garden before you came in today. Today we're joining our Desenio series, which is a series that heralds the impact of Latinos in American design. And today we're having a conversation with shoe designer Edmundo Castillo, creative director and EVP at Aquatalia. And along with Eric Mazza, who's the W Magazine Digital Features Director. And we're going to discuss their influences and process. Prior to joining Aquatalia, Edmundo Castillo worked alongside industry icons such as Donna Karen, Ralph Lauren, and Sergio Rossi. Before launching his own collection in 1999. He's been the recipient of many industry awards, including the Perry Ellis Award for Best Emerging Accessory Designer, and the Travel Leisure Design Award for Best Travel Shoes. Desenio is a partnership between Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and El Museo del Barrio, neighbors right up the mile. This program receives federal support from the Smithsonian Latino Center. Before I kind of go further, I was tasked to inform you of our tweet hashtags. Hashtag El Museo and hashtag CHtalk. So please do so when you share with your social media community. So today again, we're joining a conversation and I love this this topic because shoe design is could be invisible to many people. Or shoes in general, but can be an incredible passion to others. And I think if you're in the room today, you're on the passion side. So definitely. So please welcome, help me welcome Edmundo Castillo and Eric Mazza. Hi. This is a big crowd. Hi, everyone. So Edmundo and I were talking before the the conversation started and it turns out that the line of questioning that I had planned fits in perfectly with the slides that he had prepared. So we were just going to start from those slides. So thanks everyone for coming. This is a big honor for me to to to speak about a big passion that I have. And when I was asked to to to do this, I didn't know how I could speak about shoes without turning it personal because he's a very, very personal path. The one that has been how I got to shoes, how I how it started. And how it became what what when I started designing shoes. And it's it's it's made me think a lot about how I got to that. And I think that I have no doubt that I was meant to do this. I grew up in Puerto Rico. And in a family of a lot of women, my mother has nine sisters, nine sisters that have a lot of female, a lot of female cousins. I have three sisters older than me, 13 years older than me, 12 and 10 years older than me. And and there was a lot of shoe conversation in in in my house. But I don't remember I don't know if that was all I heard, or that was all they spoke about, you know, in in in thinking about what to talk about. I was like, wait a second, did they speak just about that? Or that's the only thing that caught my attention. And and Puerto Rico happens to be also a place where shoes, women are very passionate about high heels, platforms, metallic has never gone out of fashion. The day or night doesn't matter. One of those was my one of my sisters. And and I always felt that I understood what that passion for shoes felt like. I never I couldn't walk out of my house at whatever age it was without the shoes that I didn't decide to wear that morning. And there were days that I couldn't concentrate because I was wearing the wrong shoe. And and there were times that I just made up excuses to go home and change the shoes from school because I couldn't concentrate. And and like that there were so many things like that throughout the years that were always bringing me back to to shoes. And they were like very, I would say, important landmarks as I was growing up. So in thinking about that, it's it's it's it's very much of a very personal experience that is not just shoe design. But it's what I call the art of shoemaking because they're very different shoe design is to me. This is all an this is all a personal opinion. Should design cannot live without the art of shoemaking. The art of shoemaking is when something is invented. When designers throughout the decades have invented a construction come up with something that that women people men also love wearing. And and it has evolved into something better and more modern and and more relevant to the lifestyles that we live. And and then shoe designs is what what is taken from from the art of shoemaking to turn into a business, which there's nothing wrong with that either. You know, we all of us that are shoe designers want to turn our art into a business, a successful business. And but shoe design cannot live without the art of shoemaking. And and I want to run you guys through my journey in the last 27 years of designing shoes. So like I was saying earlier, I remember fights between my sisters to because of shoes. And I can think as early as the 70s. I was born in 1967. So my memories go to the early 70s. And and they were horrendous fights. You're not getting in my car wearing those shoes. What are you doing wearing my shoes? No, you're not going to wear those shoes. And and and the family reunions in my house were basically every weekend with all the aunts and all the cousins and all the sisters. And and they they celebrated the shoe that they walked in with that was a new one that they had clocked. Oh, that's a new shoe. Oh, fabulous shoe. Oh, how can you walk with those shoes? And and I just and I just I just listened. I just I love just like being invisible and and I was maybe five, six years old, four years old, just listening to all this. And and also my sisters would get ready for parties. All the all the friends would come to my house to get ready with them to parties and they were in their early teenage years. So I would I would just wait to watch them walk out and just have an opinion about the shoes in silence. I wouldn't figure they didn't care what I what I what I my opinion was. But I hated those shoes in the 70s. I hated those huge platforms and I hated those clunky heels and I hated everything. I just didn't get it. There was one particular shoe that was the first or maybe the second big moment landmark, which was a shoe that I discovered in one of my sister's closets that my mother had bought. I later found out that my mother had bought that shoe when she came to the new to the World's Fair in 1964 to New York. And it was a pointy pointy pointy. I hadn't seen anything that bizarre because he was the 70s. So everything was big round toe square platform. And it was super pointy and had a really thin heel, not very high, like a 50 millimeter heel. And it was so thin that this shoe would fall to the side. And it was in brown alligator. And I thought it was the most bizarre, beautiful thing. And I didn't know how anybody could wear that because they weren't wearing that. That wasn't the style in the 70s. And I would just stare at that shoe, stare at that shoe and just wonder how could that possibly be something that could be put on anybody's foot. But didn't ask anybody to put it on either. It was an object that was so beautiful that it just gave me this emotion when I looked at it that I didn't understand. But then later, since I know that emotion for when you're wearing shoes, if I can recollect on my personal experience of wearing shoes, I think it started here. So how old were you in this picture? I was wearing diaper. They were rubber cowboy boots, Puerto Rico, 85 degrees in the winter, 100 in the summer. Did you pick these out yourself? I don't remember. I just remember that I had them also in yellow and black. These were in red and black. And I remember just loving them. And I love the spear in the back. That's the thing that I love the most about them. And they had stars also in the leg. And I remember my mother pulling them off my feet and my feet were wrinkled with sweat. And that was the only thing that I wanted to wear. And I just loved them, loved them, loved them until I grew out of them. It's a very specific thing to be drawn to though. Do you think that your sister's love affair with shoes informed your own? I don't know. I think that it was something that we were all born with, too. There was a lot of creativity in my family. My sisters, two of them are very creative. My brother is very creative. My father was a dentist, but he celebrated anything that we would draw. He would hang in the wall or he would hang in his office. And he would encourage us to discover it more. We didn't go to art classes. We just did things. And his side of the family also is very creative. There's musicians, there's painters. So there was that thing of being particular about the things you like. That's why I think that it was something that I was born with, because not knowing that I was going to end up doing shoes, it was something that was embedded in me already. But that's really something that a lot of people respond to, the fact that shoes do elicit very strong feelings from people. So when you were putting on your cowboy boots over here, what was it exactly that was going through your mind? Like, did you feel powerful? Did you feel somehow... I only remember the sweaty feet. At that stage I only remember the sweaty feet. But I obviously loved them. But then there was the culture around me besides my family. And for all of you, those of you that know who Iris Chacon was, she was the star of the island. Every Saturday at 8 p.m. that was the family entertainment show. Primetime television. So I would... My brother, who's five years older than me, would just sit there and watch it while she shook her ass. And she was all curves and flaming red hair and feathers and dancers lifting her up. And it was every single Saturday, it was the most watched show. Everybody watched it. Oh, I'm sure it influenced you in many ways. Well, the heels were the thing that always caught my attention. And she's wearing one here that I couldn't understand how can anybody walk with something that high. But I was fascinated by it. I would just watch her dance through an entire segment and just dying for them to either see the big scene where I could see the shoes, or them lifting them up on their shoulders so that I could see how high were the heels that she was going to wear. Did you ever try them? No. But... My neighbor, I grew up in this small neighborhood where all the backyards kind of connected. And there's this family that one of them was the kid with me in the picture. And his sister, who is eight years older than me, was my sister's friend. And she was a big shoe shopper. And she would come to my house and I had my older sister, who to this day, she's always like, are you going to send me any shoes? Why are you going to send me any shoes? She's always like hungry for shoes. And she was the one that fought all the time about anybody wearing her shoes. But she had to wear everybody's shoes too. She was always inherited my friend's Lourdes shoes. Then Lourdes became his Puerto Rico. He was the owner of free shoes. And that was like a big celebration. So, every beauty queen got interviewed in the Edis Chacon show. So I was like, with my friend, we saw the opportunity to go to the show as her assistants. And I was like, I was like 14 years old at the time. And I wanted to see those shoes in person. I didn't care about anything else. And so we asked her, we were like, can we go to your assistant? I'll carry the crown and carry the dress. So she allowed us to go with her. And we sat in the studio. I thought that we wanted to see an entire show, but it was recorded. So we just sat on the side of the stage and the dancers were stretching. And I'm just waiting and waiting for her to see her come out. And I had to go to the bathroom. And there was this long corridor that led to the parking lot of the studio. And you couldn't see it. You could see just the light coming into this. The corridor was probably the length of this room. Or it felt like that. And they were all in their makeup rooms. And when I decided to go to the bathroom, I'd go into this narrow corridor and a door opens. And this big Jessica rabbit shape comes out of one of the Camerinos. And I had to move to the side and to the side of the wall because the ass was going to knock me. And there I saw the silver pumps that were about that height, not higher. And I just couldn't imagine how something that high could be handled with that grace. But still then, I never thought about designing shoes. I just drew. I was always sketching. I was always thinking about what I was going to wear. I was driving my mother crazy over what shoes I was not going to wear. I never allowed her to buy shoes for me. I had to pick the shoes. I had a school uniform. So I had to wear black shoes all the time. So that was my choice because I had to wear what they told me to wear through my entire school years. So shoes were the only thing that made me feel that I was, I guess, in charge of myself. Can you tell the story of the Pierre Cardan shoes that you asked your mother to buy for you? That was later. That was later. That was maybe, yeah, that was a few years later. No, by then I was shopping on my own and just eyeing things and then, can I have this amount of money to buy a pair of shoes? Are you crazy? But I put all this money together. There was this pair of Pierre Cardan shoes that I saw in the mall. And I bought them. And I thought it was the worst mistake, one of the worst mistakes I've ever done with a purchase. And every time I would wear them, they fell wrong. I mean, they weren't uncomfortable, they weren't what I wanted, but there was something about them that made me feel miserable every time I had them on. And like that, I understood the importance of the shoe that I was going to wear that day, because that was the first time that I was like, no, I can't wear this. Do you still do that to this day, like thinking about what shoe you're going to wear for the rest of the day and how it's going to inform your... I start with the shoes. You start with the shoes from the... Yeah, to this day I start with the shoes. So what was the mood today? These shoes. No, I got these shoes not long ago, so I've been loving them and wearing them and testing them. So I happen to be sample size, so a lot of them end up in my feet. But I guess I'm not as... Today I'm not as picky as I used to be with that everyday thing. But yeah, there are days that I wake up and I know exactly what I want to wear, and it always starts from the foot down, which then throughout the years, after a few years later, I started working at Donna Karen. It was all about the shoes, too. This is maybe a good segue to sort of talk about when you became a lot more serious about shoe design. Talk to me about your early education. Well, this is an image of an Antonio Lopez illustration, which there's going to be a fabulous exhibit in El Museo del Barrio. Yes, just up the street. And no one can miss. This was another big moment for me in how I wanted to be creative as opposed to how I want to react to things. And I ran into... This illustration was done for me, Sony. And I saw this illustration in a magazine and I stopped. I was just like, what is this? Well, you were still in Puerto Rico. Yeah, I was maybe 16 or something like that. And I was like, what is this? And it said Antonio on the side and all. I didn't know who Antonio was, where he was from, but the lines, the spontaneity of that drawing was what I wanted to be as an artist, whatever it was that I was going to do, I didn't know. I immediately thought I want to do fashion illustration. But that drawing and his illustrations that I kept on collecting and putting on my walls were an inspiration to what I wanted to... how I wanted to be as an artist, whatever it was that I was going to take. And did you see him out here in New York in the mid-80s? No, I went to school. I decided to, through my friend, the beauty queen, who I continue hanging out with her and she exposed me to so much. There's a lot of exposure that I had that I shouldn't have had that early, but also define a lot about how I think and how I see things and the things that excite me, you know, the bizarre, the people that are eccentric. You know, all of that stuff is just, to me, like it's just an injection of inspiration. And Alourdes had become Miss Puerto Rico. She had already given the crown. She was getting married. She was marrying the son of the mayor of San Juan. And so I could go to all the parties with her and, you know, I always looked like I was ten years younger than what I was. So it was hard for me to get into anything. But really young, I was getting into all these situations that were, like, not for my age, but I was loving it. And I was doing her wedding invi... She said to me, you're going to do my wedding invitations. And she gave me a box of calligraphy pens. And she said to me, learn the all-English style because you're going to do all my invitations. And it was 400 invitations. And while she studied, I sat with her every night. And we talked about, she showed me shoes that she had gotten in New York, Moth Frison, Gucci, Benny's and Edward's, you know, all these stuff that I didn't know, but they were like, it was just like food for my soul. And the night... I was supposed to go to Amber Riddle to study a runautical design. And I had been accepted and I was ready to go in September, but there was a problem. There was a Boy George concert that I was going to miss because I had to be in school by September 2nd. And the concert was on the 4th. So, I finished the invitations. We sit there late until 3 in the morning, you know, speaking, talking, and she studied and smoked. And I did the calligraphy. And when I finished everything, she said to me, what are you going to do in a runautical design? You're an artist. You should design something different. You know, you love to dress up. You love shoes. You love fashion. Forget about that. You're probably going to have to wear a uniform, she said to me. And that was another big moment. I thought, she's right. What am I going to do dealing with mechanics or stuff like that? Which, you know, now I deal with almost mechanics too because shoes is all about how it functions. But it made sense. Something made sense. I had the courage to tell my parents that I had changed my mind. Went to the Boy George concert. And went to the Dominican Republic to this art school that was the only place that accepted me at that late. That late. Because I sent the application in late July. So it was really late. I couldn't get anywhere. But I got in that school. And I met Antonio Lopez there. And that's me in the corner there. And Antonio would give a lecture and would draw. You know, he came, Antonio and Juan, because Antonio without Juan was not possible. It was Antonio and Juan. And Antonio and Juan would create these amazing sets that would change twice a day and models from New York and clothes from designers. And it was amazing. And I couldn't believe that I was going to meet that Antonio that I wasn't sure it was the Antonio that I had on my walls. But then Lourdes' husband knew Antonio too. So there was that connection there. And I immediately connected with him. And I would watch him draw. And I would see the passion which he threw those lines that I knew that it came from somewhere else that wasn't just his arm. He wasn't copying what he was drawing, what he was illustrating. He was turning it into something magnificent. And I understood that he was deeper than just illustrating something that was in front of him. And that really touched me. You connected to it. Why was it that he suggested that you go into shoe design specifically? Well, he would go around the class and give us tips. And he saw me struggling with a human figure. And he said to me, Emundo, you have to look at it. Study it. Take it all in. And just throw the line without thinking about it. And it wasn't as easy as just that simple explanation. But I understood what designing was from just taking the inspiration, absorb it all, and just let it out. And I understood how spontaneous everything that he did was with so many details. And that's when I decided that that was the type of designer that I wanted to be. But I understood that fashion illustration was not what I could be that with. So I stayed in touch with him and he would give me great advice. I went to New York. I stayed in the Dominican Republic. Then he came back in June to do the second part. And the first day of that second seminar, he said, Emundo, forget about fashion illustration. After me, I didn't know that he was sick with AIDS. He said, after me, fashion illustration is over. And he died two years later. And he said, he should be a shoe designer. And I went... This is at the time when Manolo Blanek was sort of... I didn't even know Manolo Blanek was yet. It all made sense. It was just like that moment that he's like, oh, shit, yes, that is what I can do with that same passion. That's what I can do with that same endless possibilities of design. I got it, I got it. And I didn't understand why I didn't get it before. But I got it. So you moved to New York first through FIT and later to Parsons, right? I didn't finish the course. I called my parents. I was like, that, mom, I got to go to New York. I need to go now. Because there is a summer class in Parsons that starts, it was starting like June 8th. I arrived like in June 6th. And I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go. And they were like, okay, okay, okay, okay. So I came to New York and that's when I really started discovering everything that was in this city and loving this city. And I thought it was going to be just the summer and I'm still here. I never left. Right. Tell me if I'm wrong. At the time, my understanding is that Manolo Blanc had sort of brought the stiletto heel back into popularity. He had? Like a dominant shoe. My first stop, I arrived in New York and I had mapped out the stores. I didn't care about any landmark. Nothing. I had mapped out Sacksfield Avenue, Bird of Goodman, Bloomingdale's. I was on the west side on 50th Street. So I went to Sacks first. Did a lot of damage with the credit card. Then I went to Bergdorf and I saw the Manolo Blanc boutique and there was all these shoes with leaves and cherries and stuff that I hadn't seen before. It was just another level of fantasy but that was wearable at the same time. It didn't look like a school project. It looked like something that was just beautiful and timeless and perfectly wearable. It would go with anything. And that was also something that caught that how I wanted to work. You can do all these with shoes. Then there was Mot Frison down the street. There was Alina Marca next door. Then there was Bloomingdale's shoe department. I would spend hours and days just in shoe departments trying to... Because then the shoe class got cancelled. There was not enough students. So I couldn't do anything but go shopping. And then there was no shoe program at the time. This was 1986. But in a way it didn't matter because eventually in 1989 you land at Donna Karen where your real education for design that's practical and fashion forward began. Another thing that my friend Lordess got me into was W. At the time W was a newspaper. And it was only by mail. And she would get W and she's like, this is the only thing you need to look at. And she would explain to me everything that was happening in W. It was like a social newspaper. And there was some ad campaigns and there was always a fashion cover. But... I have the book right here. Yeah. Funny enough, she would receive it every month and she would be like, we gotta look at W. And then she would run me through the whole thing. I was 15, 16. And so I knew a lot. I had absorbed a lot about the social scene. And who were the players and who were not the players. Exactly. And the designers and all of that. So I started discovering, seeing in person until I really got what Donna Karen was about. And that was another major moment that I was like, that's who I want to design shoes for. I understood those clothes. Because tell me a little bit about who Donna was designing for at a time. It was kind of like a working woman who was professional but she also wanted to be sexy and feminine. It was the working woman but it was for a woman that lived in New York on the go all the time. The clothes were supposed to be always comfortable. She could change as a wrong to a pair of pants and she was dressed for the evening, changed her shoes and all she did was change from the waist down. There was a whole system that made sense and was so modern and was so clean. At a time when everything was a puff skirt. Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Karen Herrera. You know, it was all more about the social scene. It was big dresses. Exactly. Donna was modern. There was Donna. There was Jeffrey Bean. There was Calvin Klein. That was to me where my shoe ideas could work perfectly. She also taught you something that you were talking about earlier that Antonio Lopez also infused in you which was the idea of creating from nothing. Exactly. It was something that I observed when he was drawing. He would turn that drawing into something better than what we were seeing there. He created an atmosphere. He created something that you wanted to be part of. He created an energy that was unique. It was completely, still his illustrations are incredible. Yeah. And like nothing that I haven't seen before I've seen again. And the lessons that Donna impart on you were to sort of begin from as opposed to following what women wanted. She wanted to teach you, give women what exactly in terms of the footwear that you worked on with her. Well, with Donna, what was wonderful about Donna was that she didn't tell you what to do. She started every season with Mundo. Mundo was the silhouette next season. So you had to come up with the silhouette. It started with the shoes. Every season started with the shoes. And that gave me room to play with platforms, with low heel, with the flat, with pointy, with rounded, with open toe, with all kinds of silhouettes because it didn't matter. It wasn't about the trend at the time. It was about creating the trends. Now it's all about the trends. But back then it was like, let's see what you dare presenting. And with Donna, that exercise was beautiful and allowed me to always connect it to the philosophy of the brand. Right. And many times we argued about to push her from 85 to 90. And I was like, finally I can do a 90 instead of 85 because you wouldn't go higher than 85 millimeters. But it always started with the shoe. It always, always started with the shoe and she would drive us crazy with the shoes too. Probably people don't remember that. Donna Karen had a footwear brand but it became a huge part of the business, wasn't it? Yes. It actually, I started there in 1989. Yes. And by 1999 when we did the IPO, the shoes were bringing in 25 cents out of every dollar that the company was making. Right. And by then it was a big shoe business and we had sales people and we had a big staff. But for many years it was just Joanne and I. And Joanne was my boss, I think that she's here. I don't know if she's here. But Joanne was my boss and she was the president. I was the vice president in our fantasy and we did everything that we wanted. There was no merchandiser that could tell us what to do. And we just did things. We just did things and they were in the cover of Women's Wear Daily and Footwear News and we just loved it. And to this day, Donna and her memoir credits you with having designed her favorite pair of shoes which were a pair of black suede lace-ups. Well, the thing with Donna was the fit. Fit was always a drama. And she had a very particular foot because she had a size nine but she had the circumference of a seven. So she was always complaining about these shoes don't fit. I can't wear these shoes. And we had to make shoes for production which we were having great success with. But for her it was never, it never fit. But there was something that I really connected with her and I understood what she wanted to get. There was something about the fitting that I wanted to try that I couldn't try because everybody knew more than me. And I believe that the technicians in Italy knew more than me. No, you can't do that. How the foot sat on the insole was going to make the foot stay in place. But my philosophy about how to do it was always like, no, I can't do that. They would tell me that in Italy. So I left Donna Karen. To go to Ralph Lauren. I went to Ralph Lauren. And I had to change. I had created my ideas about shoe design that I had outgrown out of Donna Karen. And I wanted to do those things. And then I realized that Ralph Lauren wasn't what was going to give me that. So you went back to Donna. I went back to Donna. But that's when I decided to launch my brand. So 1999, the year of Donna Karen's IPO, you take probably the biggest leap that a designer can make and launch your own label, which is maybe a good time too. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first. The pump was, to me, the biggest torture. So I decided to take on to everything that I hated. And when merchandising started doing the lines, we needed a pump. And I thought, a pump, a pump. Well, who needs a pump? Who needs another pump? So I started with the pump. And the pump needed to have, I wanted the lines to have that spontaneity that those Antonio drawings had. That I had learned from, to design like. I was already doing lines at Donna. To me, every single line became very important. It wasn't just about the shoe fitting properly, which was the most important thing, but it was about the shoe becoming alive on the foot. Right. I mean, you've said in the past that you started from the origin that the shoe needed to create a feeling more than anything. Yes. An emotion. It was, to me, it wasn't about something practical, something that you needed. It was about something that you had to have. Right. So even a pump, I was just like, who needs another black pump? Black and white only. Is it available in black? No. Only in black and white. So I, I, it was my brand. It was my line. It was going to be what I wanted. It wasn't about anybody calling. Well, we need it in black too. Well, right. Maybe as you're flipping through these slides, you can talk about a little bit about how you begin that process. Like you're looking at a blank sheet of paper in the morning. Are you thinking of a particular woman? Are you thinking of your mother? Are you thinking of particular inspirations? Or is it just coming, like Antonio said, of a particular feeling that you want to exert on the page? Women, people in general, have always been my biggest inspiration. Personalities. People with, with, with a particular personality that I like to observe. Right. Or moments. I was over her back then. Okay. I was, I was in New York and I was all about New York. And, um, and, um, I wanted to find a muse, but I couldn't find an actual muse. I, there wasn't a person that could become my muse. So I made up this muse. And this girl had a boyfriend. And they were rich and free. And they did, and everything that they wanted, they traveled all over the world, depending on what they were in the mood for. And they just pick things as they went around. And this first collection, she still wasn't in the company. She was, I still hadn't discovered her. So, you know, I was, I was doing all these basic silhouettes, but they were all, um, I wanted to add that extra touch that was going to make it my shoe and not just a sling back with an open toe. And I was just focusing on what, what was the language that I wanted to speak and how I was going to make that shoe timeless. I didn't know if that was going to happen, but that was something that always worried me. It was like, is this going to be timeless enough? I wanted women to buy shoes that they wanted to collect and not because they were a trend. They wanted to collect it and keep it in their closets and have them forever because they love them. And every silhouette that I designed was with that purpose. There was just the dorset. Oh, dorsets don't fit. No one buys dorsets. I'm going to make this dorset fit. So I made the dorset fit and the dorset became my pump. I wasn't selling pumps. I was selling the dorset. So I kept on putting all these challenges in trying to discover who I was alone and without the influence of a ready-to-wear designer around me. Right. And of course, the industry responded to you fairly early on because in 2001, you were nominated and won the CFDA's Periella's what's now called the Swarovski Emerging Talent Award, which is a fairly important endorsement for a young designer. Yeah, that was great. It was great to have that recognition at a time that I wasn't even thinking about or expecting it. Right. What also happened in 2001, of course, was 9-Eleven. Well, I was about to deliver my first season and then 9-Eleven happened and then all the shoes got stuck in costumes. So I had to turn my living room, which was already the showroom because I started the whole business out of my living room. And I liked that personal, that thing of people coming to my house and they would hang out editors and store buyers. We'd just come and hang out and I would prepare something to eat and we would smoke a cigarette. And it was a lot more personal than just coming to the showroom like I was used to. And I was loving that. And I had to turn my living room into a store and I had to sell all 700 pairs out of my living room. And today I run into people and they go, I was in your house once and I'm like, I don't know who you are. I went to buy shoes. Somehow you recovered from a huge personal and financial setback and in 2004 you had another strong endorsement that CFDA nominated you for best success redesign over the year with some heavyweights, read Krakow and more importantly, Marc Jacobs. Well, by then, which, you know, these are some of the shoes that I continued working on in my, here this is the Greece collection. They went to Greece and they just made Greek shoes. There was this sandal which I wanted to be non-existent on the foot but details to hold the foot where it needs to need an extra help so that it would sit perfectly on the insole. And she's in the Greek shoe here again. This is part of another collection though. The Swarovski crystal 100 millimeter long flat. You know, this was all of when they were in Greece. Then I decided to open a store because I felt that department stores were cornering me to what I didn't want to be. I wanted to be something else. Cynthia Marcus would come all the time and be like, you cannot only design 100 millimeter heels. We need a 75. I would do more 100 millimeter heels until the 100 millimeter heel became my number one height. I mean, my production was growing quite fast and what was beautiful was that it was a lot of ignorance. I didn't know what I was doing. It was just working out beautifully. But I didn't have in mind a lot of the things that today or later I had to keep in mind. But to me it was all about self-discovery. It was all about self-discovery and timelessness. You know, wedges. This was in 2003 and they were like, are you crazy? It's too high. And today that's what we see around. And that's the one thing that we're putting this thing together. It's so wonderful that they all became what I wanted. Is there a constant do you think in your design aesthetic from when you first started designing shoes to something like this that you made for Yoko Ono, right? Well, yeah, this one. That one. That was another fabulous moment, too. Stefan, who's my dear friend here in the second row, was dressing Yoko Ono for the Grammys for the 40th anniversary of the Beatles, something like that. So I was flying back from Italy and he was like, Mundo Yoko wants to talk to you. And I was like, who? Yoko wants to talk to you. And you got to come. You got to go to her apartment tomorrow morning. And I was like, I'm flying tomorrow. I can't. Well, so flew to New York. I was at eight in the morning and walking to that apartment. And I was like, what am I doing here? It was just like an out-of-body experience. Suddenly I was in John Lennon's apartment in Yoko Ono. And there was the love and the war hole. There was all those things that we've seen in magazines. And I'm like, and then they took me to the kitchen. And it's things like that that just, it's like fuel. It's kind of like those electric cars. It's like a plug of things to get, not to like absorb things or see things or like look at things that are not in my business. But it's like moments of people like that, that you go, you know, I want more of this to be able to do more of that. And all she wanted to tell me was that the instep was a little too narrow. But she liked to go straight to the source. Then I was pushed out of that apartment. It was like back to reality. It's like, what happened? Where am I? So how has your design aesthetic changed over the years, even when you got to Castanerre and then Santoni? Well, I got over straight lines and I started doing surrounded lines. Then I opened the store. The store became like a hangout where girls came to talk about their experiences with the shoe. They didn't know that I had an office downstairs and I could hear all the conversation. And that was wonderful. Because everything that I wanted and fantasized to hear about, that was all I heard. And sometimes when I wasn't there, I would tell the sales girl, okay, tell me what happened today or who came in today and told you what. And there were all fabulous stories about the shoes in the bedroom and all kinds of things where that kind of fueled for me to just do more beautiful things. So what I wanted was to make beautiful things before anything else. Did you ever find an answer to the eternal question? What is it that women want about their shoes? Well, it depends. They want to feel fabulous, first of all. I think that shoes for women are like underwear. You choose what you're going to wear. No one tells you where this underwear is. If you don't feel comfortable in that underwear, you don't wear that underwear. And comfortable means part of you. That's who you are. And shoes is that other thing that anybody can tell you where this clothes, that dress looks great on you, that shirt, those pants, wear it. And I think that most women can take advice of that sort. But when it comes to the shoes, you don't mess with the shoes. That is her choice. And that is what I've always pushed me to make things for whatever occasion it is to make them feel fabulous. It's just about making them feel fabulous. Fabulous or super fabulous. But fabulous, period. Are there things that have women's choices over the years changed? Heels are getting higher. Still, higher and higher. Higher and higher. I never thought that that could happen. But at the end of the day, a woman wants a shoe that they can wear, that they can feel great in. And great includes comfortable, sexy, attractive, hip, modern, any of those things. That she can take care of, she can handle the shoe as opposed to the shoe handling her. Although there are some women that they are handled by the shoe and I don't know if they know it. But ultimately it's about feeling in charge. But feeling in charge, not necessarily because they want to walk in the room and they want people to notice their shoes. It's about what the shoe does to the entire mood. Their mood enhancers. Shoes are mood enhancers. That's a great tagline. How has your aesthetic changed over the years? Have you doubled down on certain eccentricities? Have you responded to the market? Especially when you moved into bigger labels like Sergio Rossi? Well, after that 2004 nomination, I was really torn with what to do about my business. I had started that business with my own money. I had already done some things that money was coming in, but I needed an investor. And it was just me and help from friends. And at the same time they called me from Sergio Rossi and I saw it as a great opportunity to explore with a bigger audience. There were 19 stores around the world. It was a brand that I knew well. It was a brand that I could relate to. But to me it was about, in the same way that I respected Donna Karen's aesthetics, I needed to respect the heritage of that brand. Like the house codes. But inject me, which was going to be the natural thing, but how? It was a challenge that it was super scary, but I loved that kind of thing. And this is the first? This was one of the first collections, which was, I didn't want to bring my girl. It was just like, no, she's not coming. She's mine. I have to find a different way to get inspired. So I started getting inspired by themes. And at the time I had had a lot of exposure to many other things, by taking trips, art, and many things that I was always looking for inspiration in other places, other than fashion. And this was just a real collection, which was kind of like a scandal because it's like, who's going to wear a pump with a splash of paint coming dripping down to the front? And I was like, well, who will not? It's a pump. And it all started with also a picture that Stefan sent me. I don't know how he sent it to me because there was no iPhones or anything like that. And it was a splash of paint on a wall. And I was like, I got to do something with that. So now with a team of merchandisers and salespeople and me coming in as a new, I was taking over Sir Joe, which was a big thing. There was a lot of controversy in-house. So this pump was like, are you crazy? So I gave it to them as a peep-toe too. And I gave it to them as a ballerina as well. But what was wonderful was that we had stores to put them in. So we didn't have to wait for the department stores or any stores to react. We could put what we believed in. And it was a big, big, big success. But to not to stop short, then the ball's heels came, which was one night fantasizing about shoes with Andrea. And I was like, make a heel that looks like a ball. So I was complaining about what they weren't allowed with me to do. And it was like, make a ball, make a ball of a heel. And this was also, it started bringing a lot of attention. And the editorial started going up. So that changed the whole dynamic of what I was doing there. And then when you take over a heritage label like this one, you really have to kind of make your mark early on, which clearly did. Well, these were some shoes. This wasn't the entire collection. The collection was big and there was a lot of playing as well. But I was putting the initial energy into what was going to be the collection about. And then we would do those shoes. That painted pump also came plain and came in suede and in other materials. But they all sold too. And like that, that was like fuel to do more. Alligator covering 22 carats of real gold. And that was, it was magnificent. It was so beautiful. I used to love to go into this cage where they had a locked. To me, it was like the most amazing fantasy was to like have skins locked in a cage. And then, you know, this was the Pigalle collection with like wolf in the back. And the keyhole pump. And I just wanted to do all that craziness, but in shoes that could be worn. Not a Lady Gaga madness. But things that people could wear and feel fabulous in them. Feel that they had something that they didn't have in their closet before. And they have something that has been true throughout your career. Is that these shoes have a lot of personality? I think that they have an energy that I put into the drawing when I draw. It's just like I just go crazy when I figure out the idea. When I'm in a role. It's just goes, goes, goes, goes. And I think that like any artist that translates into whatever they paint or they design or they do. And maybe it's that. They were all bugle beads with rose beads. All hand embroidered in India on a grain boot to make the boot even more wearable. But it was, it was these things where what brought everybody into the store to buy the other things. So I kind of like, I figure out a new recipe on how to sell shoes that I didn't have before. Right. And that served you well as you went on to other assignments after surgery. Rosie, you revived your own label. Well, like continuous surgery. This was part of the big lace boot. This boot, we used to do this presentation in the showroom during Fashion Week. Milan does a day of accessories. And that one day is where all editors go through the showrooms looking at the collections of either handbags or shoes. And Karim Royfield walked in and she almost had a heart attack when she saw that boot. And the boots were gone that evening to be shot for the cover of Vogue, of Vogue France. And I had also raised the heels a little bit more too, which it was the beginning of the Louis Vuitton years. And I didn't want to go into the platform. I just didn't want to go into the platform. That was like, that was a moment that was not, I couldn't face that part. But, you know, it's all, they're all real turquoise tones. And then they told me that I was going too crazy. I had to go to calm down. Okay, I'll calm down. So, this sandal, we needed, I was trying to figure out how to make a shoe that was easy to make, that would have great impact on the customer. She would want to have it. It would be easy to wear. But the factory could produce it really quick and deliver it to our stores in no time. Kind of like the Zara philosophy. So, and so I decided to turn, okay, you want simple, I'm going to give you a really simple and cheap too. So, this became the ad campaign to that season. And to make the shoe seem what I wanted it to be as simple as it was, as inexpensive as it was to make, I just, we created this set where she's like, I was throwing water with a hose. And she was like, it was like she was in Times Square and it was raining and she was running away from the rain. And she was in sandals. So, all that stuff was what made all of these so much fun too. Ribbons. I always did, I always played with ribbons. And after having done this sandal, then I started just finding ribbons and turning them into shoes and experimenting with making those patterns play in different ways. And it was all very much for my to learn something new. In trying to make something, I was also trying to figure out how much I can do. Because I think that we as designers have that responsibility to push the limits, to not to just, we know that this is what they want. We know that this is what is planned. But don't stop short, just go that extra mile to make that be all of that that they want. Right, you have to upend people's expectations. Then this was one of the last collections that I did was just Modern Africa. Oh, no. Then there was this moment in which I thought that Sergio Rossi woman, this was 2003, I felt they needed sneakers. But I didn't want to make just any sneakers. We found a way to get to Puma. And I took just the classic Puma and just made it in satin and in these four colors. And then in a high heel. So it was always, for all of you to designers here, is all about pushing the boundaries. It's all about pushing the boundaries. And that is what I have always done to get to where I want to go. This was the Africa collection. I wanted her to, I wanted to look like she killed a monkey and made a pair of shoes out of monkey. And all these shapes and snake skin all embroidered with covering. I got into this role of eccentricity. I also met Isabella Blow. And I used to have lunch with Isabella Blow every season that she came to the Milan shows. And we had a one on one at a beach. And I couldn't wait to see what she was going to wear to that lunch. And she would look at me through a feather or some crazy hat. It was just like give me more. So, you know, all that was a big inspiration for all of these things. But yet, always something that they could wear. It should be wearable. It's not just a costume. It has to be wearable. And then I closed my collaboration at Sergio Rossi with Monkey Biz, which is this place in this organization in South Africa that women, they do all these beats and we gave all the proceeds of the shoes that were sold to them. And it goes to build hospitals for AIDS and to bury artists and to create education and all of that. So I thought it was wonderful. And Don, I was the one who connected me with that because I thought it was going to do Africa. I wanted to leave Sergio Rossi having done something bigger than just inspired by Africa. No, this looks perfect for urban zone. Maybe now is a good time to go to review. Sorry, I had to sneak in a joke about urban zone. Maybe it's a good time as you're flipping through your years at Castagnere in Santolini because I want to make sure people ask them questions for you to talk about some of those lessons that you want to impart to younger designers. Well, you know, this was another Castagnere is a brand of espadrilles. And I left Sergio Rossi behind and I understood that the espadrille is about every day. It's about comfort. So it's a summer shoe. It's something that has to be easy, easy to wear. And how do you make it be something more than just a classic espadrille? So this was another big challenge. So, you know, I think that it's important to take in what is the heritage of the brand and how you're going to evolve it as time passes because you have to make it evolve somehow and stay true to the heritage. So these are some of the silhouettes that I play with with the wedges. This is the Catalan espadrille, which is, I didn't do this, but this is the very, very typical espadrille from Catalunya. And because Castagnere is from Catalunya, I just took the whole play of the Catalan espadrille into all of their shapes. And this was a lot of fun because every season I could just like turn it into something else. And in doing all this, I realized that, you know, and looking at all of this to me is about, I just, I love doing shoes that are, that is a challenge. It's like a project challenge. It drives me crazy, but it's that thing that fuels me to make it work and make it good, to make it sell and make it have success. And timeless too, which is sort of like what you're talking about. And experimenting with all these different categories has been a wonderful thing that I didn't plan, but, you know, has been wonderful. This was with Santoni, which was all about menchus. He didn't have a women's collection and he wanted to create a women's collection that was sexy and all of that, but he was just, you don't need another platform. Lutant type shoe, which everybody wanted a sole color, and everyone was like, fucking break. You need a great shoe. You don't need a sole color. You're not going to solve your problems with doing a blue sole. So Santoni became about the mistress and the cool girl. So the men's moccasin, the mistress, with all of the touches that are men's shoes, you know, in all of its details. I always go back to a masculine shoe to start anything that was going to be Santoni and try to turn it into something very feminine, the lace up shoe, but with the lace up the back. I think that the back is sometimes so much sexier than the front, the back of the shoe. So all those details in the back. Santoni did a lot of antiquing. So I took their antiquing and I turned it into just coloring the shoe in a different way as opposed to just making the shoe look old or antiqued or worn. So I just played with the ink with how they had these amazing workers that did this beautiful hand work in the shoes. And all those details were what I always kept in mind for the Santoni collection. Then I had to stop the madness. I felt that I had to find myself again and that's when I relaunched my brand again. It was all about the platform. It was all about the Pipto. It was all about something that looked like it was from another time, the 1940s. And I think we were stuck in the 40s for such a long time with that Pipto, that Pipto that I hate Piptoes. Three shoes, three toes is the limit. Less than two toes is not pretty. It's not. Three toes. So Piptoes, platforms, Pipto, so I wanted to go back to light shoe and decided to relaunch my brand because it felt like I needed to do that. But I wanted to even experiment more with what it was, and that's how I started with the light sandal, which is one of my prides of my entire career. I researched this company that did the flip phone, the razor phone, and they did the technology when the phone opens and lights up. And it's a company in Texas. So I found them. I got in touch with them. They told me that they could do something that was water resistant and that could light up. And I was in Texas at no time. And then it took a good six months, no? It's like six months to figure out how to make the power charge to 130 watts battery that was inside of the wedge that were tiny and then light the entire shoe properly. Because you needed certain charge to have the shoe light up with the same amount of light. And you would take the cable off, the light would last for five hours. And that button in the inside could turn it on and off. So you could keep the shoes on or you could just save energy and turn it off. And this is how they looked at night in the dark. And then it became a very limited edition because the factory workers would get a 130 charge, this charge in their hands if they touched the wrong cables. They hated making the shoes. They were like, we're not making more of this, basta. So 30 pairs were made. They were, I wanted the box to be like an electronics. And the shoe came like that with the charger on the side and the collaboration with Elastolite, which was the technology. And went back to my basic shoes. This is Selita Banks wearing the Divina sandal, which became the sandal that was in every color and that girls could wear so easy because it was the insole what held the foot in place, not just the upper. It's all about how the foot sits on that insole that makes that shoe be manageable and be comfortable, relatively comfortable because something that high is high. But without the support of the insole, there is no support. And like that, I continued working with details, color combinations, and this was 2011, 2012. I took the Espadrilles to another level that I wanted it not to be cast on for my own label, but be my Espadrilles collaborations with jewelry designers. I mean, looking at these, it's clear that you picked up certain lessons from your time at all these various levels, labels. Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, with Donna Karen, there had to be an Espadrilles in every resort collection. Every collection is an Espadrill. So I kept on making shoes that were essential in the way that in a winter collection you have boots, in the summer collection you have certain things. Then this was the sneaker that got the Travel and Leisure Best Travel shoe because I would see all these. It was so hard to take your shoes on and off and unlace them and put them on and then you start seeing horrendous moccasins going through that belt and you're like, I want to see something better. So the sneaker, you just would slip it on and slip it off and it was just perfect to travel. You slip it on your foot also to go to the bathroom and the plane and just on and off easy and then it evolved into the shoes. And I kept on collaborating with fashion designers just doing things that were basically things that I loved and that I wanted to see. As you're looking back, and I want to make sure that we get some audience questions as you're looking back at your entire career, a question occurs to me. Do you think Antonia would have been proud? I think so. I think so. What is it that you think you would have responded to the evolution of your aesthetic over the years? I don't know exactly what to say of what but Antonia liked to be provocative. He liked to push buttons. He liked to, the short time that I got to spend with Juan and Antonia they liked to be provocative with things but at the same time it had to be beautiful. It had to be provocative and beautiful. And I think that that was one thing that I loved about them, that naughtiness. I think that's a good note too, let the audience run wild. I got finally into the platform but I had to make it not look 1940s. So does anyone have any questions they'd like to ask? My question is about technology again. So we have the Met just very close to Cooper Hewitt, technology, innovation, polymers, nanoscience, wearable technology. How all this stuff is affecting your creativity? Thank you. It is a major part of my inspiration because I like to look at the future. I like to look at what's next, what can we do or design that looks... We start designing a year before and it has to work next year when it gets delivered to the stores. So in design, in those lines, you have to think this is what they're wearing today, this is how they're feeling today, this is what the technology is today, is there anything that is going to be better next year, for next year? So it's a big part of my philosophy and aesthetic. I've been looking at your shoes the whole time. Do you ever feel any sort of desire to do something for the men's shoe? Well, I have, I did. I have been, the sneakers were unisex. Yes, I think he's wearing a pair. I've been watching those also, yes, they look comfortable. And I do design men's shoes too. It's very, the way in which men's shoes, from my perspective, are designed is very different than the way women shoes are designed. Men are more particular about certain things that women don't care about but I like to give them to them too. My first job in New York was in a men's shoe store and I worked for two months and I quit because I couldn't stand working with men's shoes, with men's customers. They're the most picky pains when it comes to putting a shoe on. While a girl loves it, she's with her friend, she puts it on, do I love it, do you like it, do you think it's fabulous, yeah, chink chink, credit card, go. Men, they look at the details. They marry the shoe, that shoe is forever theirs and then they go back for the same shoe when they wore it out and they want for it not to wear out. So it's a different exercise. I kind of do, as much as I'm criticized. I kind of do, I kind of do, I actually do. So I think we have time for just one more question. Does anyone else want to? Hi, you mentioned a while back in the conversation that you found that the department stores were sort of pressuring for something specific from you that you didn't want to have to deliver on and I was wondering if you could describe what that was. Well, stores, they come looking for what they can get from you that they may not get from other designers. They already have a history with other brands so they know what they're going to sell. When you are the new kid on the block, some stores can't help but put their two cents into what is going to sell easier. They want you to have success. They want you to, they want those shoes to sell because they are committing to that. But they like to give a lot of opinions and sometimes they're great, sometimes they're not. I have learned to take them all but back then I was just like, no, you need a black pump buy it from somebody else, mine is black and white. So, you know, it's part of not knowing a lot of things but it was also part of also establishing my aesthetic and what I was about and how I was going to be able to shine for what I was trying to do and not by getting it watered down and represented in the wrong way. But it's, of course, stores don't want to get stuck with merchandise but I think that it's important to find also that balance in which you can make them feel confident that that shoe is going to sell as that. There's all the things that back it up to magazines and all those things. But it was very different back then. It's quite different now too. How did you break into high fashion? How did you end up at Donna Karen in the beginning? Like coming to New York? I was very fortunate to have met people who were already working in the fashion industry and I started doing internship at Oscar de Arendt which was in the same building as Donna Karen and it was 557th Avenue where everybody was. It was the fashion building. And I also, you know, in life you have to be like a hawk. You see an opportunity, you jump when you see it. Especially when you want something that bad. You can't waste time. You can't waste time. So my eye was on Donna Karen when I would go to those internships at Oscar de Arendt and I finally bumped into her at one of my friend's Parsons graduation fashion show and I was going down the stairs and I just ran into her and it was just, it was now or never and I was like, oh my God. I want to see you. I wish you'd be a designer. I want to work for you. I want to show you my book. I want to show you my book. And she was just so, I guess, so like, okay, okay, okay. Then I got to get an appointment and she hired me. But I always, part of what I wanted to work in in that fantasy world of fashion, I wanted to be part of the creative process of beautiful clothes that people saw and waited for twice a year. Now it's 10 times a year. But it was like twice a year. It was like the collection. What's gonna be, Donna? All that was to me part of the excitement of being part of that world and what fueled me to do the things how I like to do them. Is that part of your advice for young designers to have that kind of tenacity? Of course. You know, today, business today is very, is very, it's a big question mark. You know, we're all very worried about what's gonna happen next season, what's gonna happen next year. The industry is just full of more brands of clothes, of shoes, of handbags. It's just, it's saturated. It's saturated with a lot. And we all are competing to be, you know, in the front of all of that. And it has, the exercise has changed too. It's now about the trends. It's not about who you are. No one, would you think that someone owns something? You know, designers own their lines. They own their style. Today, studs are everybody's. You know, one did studs, let's run and do studs. Not the brands that copy other brands, but also the high fashion brands. It's just sneakers, sneakers, you know, as per drills, it has become too much of everything. And it's in our hands to make that work. To, I don't know how we're gonna do that, but I think about it all the time. I think about how we are going to be, how we can change in the same way that we make people react to something. We need to own who we are as a brand, as a designer, or the brand that we're working for. What is that gonna be about? And how we're going to make that super basic two-band sandal be the best two-band sandal? Or that shoo-dee, or that booty, or that plain thing that she can wear every day. How is that going to be the one that she's gonna go, I have to have it. And we have to do that. That's our responsibility. We have to fight through a lot of walls of business plans, merchandisers, you know, not you, Joseph. I'm not talking about you. I wanna make that clear. But, you know, there's a lot that gets imposed that sometimes you wanna say, I'll do it in Basta, but no. You have to find a way to be an original. And I think that's a good note to end on and go to Vice for all the young folks in the room. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.