Sunday 13 February 2011

Spring Summer Inspiration

Our SS11 range is influenced by both African and Western colour, detail and material, mixing them together to create dynamic, hybrid styles. Have a look below and let us know what you think.
Love Art Wear Art SS11

The starting point for the range was a fantastic graphic print fabric found in a Soho Cloth House. The rough, woven, monochrome print inspired the subtle 'ethnic' feel to the range. We loved it so much we have used it to create the soft knotted style pictured above, third from left, the fabric adding a unique and edgy twist to a classic style.  

Chris Ofili's 'Mono Oro'
The work of contemporary artist Chris Ofili inspired us some more. His brilliant use of colour & texture made us explore how we could push the range further by adding embellishment & texture to the shoes. It started out with rows of seed beads but ended with more modern coloured pin studs.


When you look at the original mood board 
that inspired our SS11 range (above), you'll see that it relied a lot more on heavy pyramid studding. During the design process and the refining of the 
samples, the studding evolved organically, becoming a lot less about aggressive hardware and a lot more about interesting lines and subtle surface decoration.
In contrast to the ethnic print, rich colours and embellishment there are also hints of Western, equestrian footwear. Natural leathers, chunky leather stack heels and diagonal stirrup-like straps to create strong lines and modern shapes. By combining these African & Western influences we have created what we hope is a series of strong, sexy, beautifully-made shoes.

We hope to post the first designs from the range on the blog very soon and would love to hear your comments!


Let there be shoes!

Hi there shoe lovers and welcome to the Love Art Wear Art blog. We are a bespoke footwear label based in London and we run our blog alongside the website as a sketchbook & visual diary. Please feel free to have a look around and contact us with any feedback or comments. This is our first post and one to test the water with so bear with me and watch this space.