With an array of international awards and designer collaborations aplenty (Rodarte, Gareth Pugh, Zac Posen, Phillip Lim, Doo Ri, Boudicca, Belstaff, Basso & Brooke and Louise Goldin to name but a few), Nicholas Kirkwood is putting the finishing touches to his eagerly anticipated Autumn/Winter collection. It’s just those damn flats he’s not sure about!

Kiki Georgiou: Could you tell us how you started and how you got into design?

Nicholas Kirkwood: I started out studying Fine Arts at St. Martins. I was trying to work out what exactly it was I wanted to do. Then I landed a job as an intern at Philip Treacy…

KG: Yeah, how did that come about?

NK: I met him on holiday and then I just rang him one time and asked if there was any work experience so I ended up doing the sales and things like that at the shop for about five years…

KG: So, quite a long time!

NK: Yes! I wasn’t as work experience for five years! That would have been pretty dedicated!

KG: That’s a lot of cups of tea!

NK: At the same time, when I was still working at the store, ladies would bring in their outfits and their shoes and whatever else they were planning on wearing, to try and work out what kind of hat they wanted to go with it. Some days I’d see all these amazing outfits and then the shoes would be all kitten heels at the time, pointy kitten heels! And I thought ‘Oh my God, there’s got to be something better than this!’ Clothing was quite exciting at the time, you had McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, and the shoes just seemed only knock-offs of vintage or stuck in the Fifties somewhere, so it inspired me to go and study shoemaking and get back into a course to see how that could be done.

KG: So before that, you hadn’t thought of designing shoes? Were you more into designing in general?

NK: Well, I’ve always been interested in design in general, it could have been furniture or jewellery or cars or anything that really has a function and can be made to look pretty as well. So, it was something I didn’t really know about, not many people were doing, I could only really count about five shoe designers so I thought it could be a good challenge. I went to Cordwainers to study classic shoe making and pattern cutting, just to work out how it’s all put together.

KG: It must be good to have that really practical experience.

NK: Yes, for me if you’re going to design something you really need to know how it’s made and what the physical boundaries are so that way, you know how to get around things better or interpret something better from a drawing.

KG: Especially with shoes!

NK: Everything has to be millimetre-perfect; it’s really a precise artisan trade. So then, I was still working at Philip’s at the time, I started just making my own shoes at home and one day decided actually maybe I should put a collection together. 

KG: Was that around 2005?

NK: 2005 was my first collection, summer 05. 

KG: Since then, you’ve won quite a few awards! 

NK: It’s really great to get that kind of recognition, it pushes you harder to try and get to the next stage and move on as a company.

KG: The Vogue Italia award as well as the Emerging Talent at the British Fashion Awards must have been especially good!

NK: That was really my first collection ever that I really felt happy with (spring-summer 07) and the way it came out, and had the right factory. By that time I’d found the right factory to work with and understood what I wanted to do and could actually execute what I wanted to do other than something that looked a bit like it! I’m still working with them!

KG: You also collaborate with quite a few designers. Could you name a few?

NK: There’s quite a few, since last spring-summer I’m only able to do one other collaboration other than my collection because now I’m contracted to work with Pollini. The only one I do now is Rodarte, which is exciting.

KG: That must be great, working with the Rodarte sisters?

NK: Yeah, they’re really passionate and so precise. It’s really good to work with someone who’s got such strong ideas as well. 

KG: How do these collaborations work creatively? Do they come to you with something specific in mind?

NK: I’ve done so many different collaborations in the past and sometimes it’s ‘do whatever you want’, which is not really a collaboration. Other times it’s ‘can you make this exactly?’ and again, that’s not really a collaboration. The best collaboration is whenever you take their vision to brink point, to the point where both of you are putting in ideas that spark another idea and bounce off each other, creating something that’s a mix of the two aesthetics and something that works for both of us.

KG: Is that how it works with Rodarte then? Those bondage shoes were incredible!

NK: I only started working with them last season, the ones before were Louis Vuitton…

KG: But you did spring-summer 09, right?

NK: Yes, they came to me with their ideas, and the materials they wanted to use and wanted certain straps in places so I had to work out the structure and how to make that practical…it works out in the end!

KG: So, how about Pollini?

NK: I actually just got a random call one day saying that they were looking for this new position and what the plans for the brand were and would I be interested to come and meet with them. 

KG: What made you want to do it?

NK: One is that they really wanted to change it around; it wasn’t like “we know we need a direction but still have to do this and this because that’s our core customer base”. It’s an entire overhaul of the entire brand and for me, that’s more exciting than going to work for another house and working within their aesthetic already. I have to try and create a totally new aesthetic and image for the company. It’s definitely a challenge because they’re not like an old French couturier that, in some ways, has a memory, a past. It’s really interesting! 

KG: Back to your own line, we’ve seen the spring-summer collection and now you’re working on autumn-winter. What should we expect from it? Is it very different from spring direction-wise?

NK: This season I’m trying to create some of my own fabrics, trying to customise some of the leathers. Quite often with shoe making, things tend to be just off-the-shelf, like it’s a leather or it’s a satin. In clothing, people are making their own prints, doing certain devorés, and it’s something that’s slightly lacking in the shoe world. So, that’s something I’m trying and also doing some new structures, some new platforms and heels and trying to create a new story there. 

KG: Is it true that you’re doing your first pair of flats?

NK: Uhmmm, yes if I get it done! I haven’t started working on them yet but I’ve got to have it ready for Paris so…

KG: No pressure!

NK: I’ll start work on those maybe next week. But yes, if they come out looking ok they will be. They’re not going to be flat flats like a ballerina, because that’s also, in the same way I felt when I first started making shoes with everything looking same-y, I feel that now about flats and ballerinas. Ballerinas are the same fucking shoe, done in every colour-way possible so yeah, there’s an area slightly unexplored! I’m not quite going to the mid-height yet, I’m sure in seasons to come that will happen, but for me it’s just going to be either high or low.

KG: It’s funny with ballerinas because obviously they’re done too much so now they’re trying to come up with new things to put on them, so you end up with shoes drowning in prints and bows and just so much embellishment!

NK: Embellishment is something I haven’t really gone into. I’ve used things like pearls but it tends to look more like a structural part of the shoe rather than just something sitting on top. I feel that there has to be a reason for something to be there rather than just for decoration, that’s why most of my shoes have no decoration, it’s more about the lines you can create and silhouettes or negative spaces. In some ways that’s limiting but also pushes me to try and create new shapes so it’s not just a Mary Jane, not just a pump or T-bar. Sometimes it’s something abstract and then it comes down to how you materialise them, and the colours…

KG: I love that blue colour from the spring collection!

NK: That’s my favourite colour other than black. I would use it the whole time but it’d get a bit boring! 

KG: What’s the palette for autumn-winter?

NK: There’s a lot of black, even a bit of brown, which is something I haven’t done much with before, but not too much, let’s have a little look…a bit of grey, a really dark teal colour, and a dark fuchsia, and I did something with that blue but I don’t know if I’m going to use it…

KG: Maybe keep it special! What influences you each season? Your designs seem very architecture-inspired and as you were saying, it’s more about the form and actual design. 

NK: It’s not really directly anything, it’s just more the idea of the shape and negative spaces and coming up with interesting heel details. It’s more of a constant study of that for me. It is architectural I suppose but it’s not like ‘that’s taken of a building’, it’s not as direct as that. It’s weird, I just sit down and doodle until I see something within that that works and changes.

KG: It’s interesting and quite refreshing to not have one single direct influence for something.

NK: Yeah, I don’t go ‘this season is going to be Spanish!’

KG: Or an Eiffel Tower heel!

NK: I try and stay away from gimmicks in that way, I wouldn’t do an Eiffel Tower heel, that’s all fun if I were to do it for other people but for my line I try to keep it purer. It’s just about the shape and how you interact with that shape.

KG: That sets you apart.

NK: Yeah but it’s kind of awkward as well trying to come up with another new shape. If you think about it there are infinite shapes, it’s just coming up with the right one!

KG: One that you can stand on! What’s with the all the girls falling on the runways recently?

NK: I think just last season platforms were so high and it’s not always so easy, especially if the girl is not wearing the right size shoe.

KG: Who would you like to see wearing your shoes?

NK: Hmmmm, “who would I like to see”…I always get asked that question and I can never think of an answer!

KG: It’s a silly but difficult one, right?

NK: There are lots of cool people…

KG: You can just make one up! Or who have you seen wearing your shoes and made you really happy?

NK: Daphne Guinness, that’s for sure, she’s got amazing style. I’d like to see Carine Roitfeld wearing the shoes; actually, I’d like to see the Queen wearing them!

KG: I’d like to see the Queen wearing them too! In Royal blue! Perfect!

NK: That would be funny! I can make them in Royal Blue for her!

KG: Of course! What’s the plan for the future? Will you continue with your own line and Pollini?

NK: I think so. I want to try and expand a little on my own line, maybe at some point do bags, not in the foreseeable future though at some point I think it makes sense. 

KG: Hats maybe!

NK: I can’t go there! It’d be like a betrayal! And also, he’s just such a master…

KG: How can you follow Philip Treacy, right?

NK: Exactly, it’s impossible! But bags. And men’s shoes as well.

KG: You do like a challenge, don’t you?

NK: I always like a bit of a challenge but it’s only one because a lot of the stuff is quite same-y, not that I would try to do something radically different otherwise no one would wear them. I’d rather just make something I want to wear myself.

KG: Can’t wait to see the new collection! Thanks Nicholas!


KG

www.nicholaskirkwood.com