designer chat

Titan designer Celine Ouaknine, also known as The Shoe Girl to savvy fashion blog readers, has a pulse on what footwear fiends want. Since 2008, she’s given her readers a peek into the demanding and ever-changing world of shoe design. “It’s super fun and I feel a special connection with my readers. We’re all just a bunch of shoe lovers, just hanging out,” she says. That
insider knowledge, and her own obsession with shoes, kick started the launch of Ouaknine’s own line Cece L’amour for spring.

Jeff Halmos, one-half of the CFDA award-winning creative firm Shipley & Halmos, says there’s an unwritten rule that if he or design partner Sam Shipley wouldn’t wear it, they won’t make it. It’s a guideline that’s helped actualize a focused (just three styles) and well-received debut collection of men’s footwear for fall and is providing the framework for the duo’s Spring ’12 collection.

Not one for habitually following trend forecasting reports, British designer Terry De Havilland made a rare exception for his recent spring collection. “I had a tipoff that my designs from the ’70s were part of a heavy-duty prediction chart,” says the designer, who made a splash that decade with his strappy Margaux platform wedge. Instead of watching copycats reinterpret his work, De Havilland beat them to the punch and knocked himself off. “My ’70s styles are what my customers want so that’s what I’m giving them,” he explains.