ALESSANDRA LANVIN

30, FOUNDER OF APERLAI SHOES

When Bazaar meets Alessandra Lanvin—(yes, those Lanvins—she’s married to Hubert Lanvin, the grandson of the eponymous fashion brand’s founder Jeanne Lanvin)—she’s the epitome of Parisian chic: Elegant, beautiful, and smiling.

And the founder of Italian brand Aperlai has every reason to smile. Three of her pieces showed at the shoe exhibition held at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology’s recently-concluded exhibition, alongside established designers like Prada, Dior, and Manolo Blahnik. It’s a huge coup for the relatively new brand.

Aperlai’s pieces stood out among the many brands that participated in FIT’s shoe exhibiton earlier this year

Footwear doesn’t come much more daring than Aperlai. Influenced by her art history degree, Alessandra references artists like Pollock, Picasso, and Mondrian, experimenting with textures, colours, and geometric lines. “I love artists such as Jackson Pollock for the materials he used,” she says. She translates his emphasis on texture into her own designs, using exotic skins like crocodile, python, stingray, and pony, as well as creating her own unique textures. “I use a rubber gum with velour on it, and for me it is a texture and a very interesting material,” she says.

Aperlai’s Fall ’13 collection features organic shapes and is similarly steeped in art history, with nods to Cubism, De Stijl, and even ancient Egypt. “There are four stories within the collection. One is about the organic shapes and is very sexy and sensual—it features straps like Mary Janes. The Geisha shoe is an ode to Cubism, and then there is the Mondrian collection which is very graphic; it is a play on contrasting colours. I like the shoe called Pico (Picasso). I think it is because the colours are very Cleopatra.” Kate Bosworth, Blake Lively, and Kiera Knightley are all fans.