Kate Middleton’s Favorite Footwear Brand Channels Punk With New Collaboration
● Penelope Chilvers, responsible for creating Kate Middleton's favorite riding boots, has teamed with stylist Bay Garnett on a King's Road-inspired capsule.
LONDON —
Kate Middleton-favored footwear brand Penelope Chilvers takes on the Punks and Sloanes from '70s and '80s London in a new collaboration with stylist, editor and photographer Bay Garnett.
Garnett, whose signature styling move is to fuse high and low, cites fond memories of going thrifting up and down King's
Road with Anita Pallenberg as one of the inspirations behind the collection.
“Pallenberg was like the fifth member of the Rolling Stones and I always used to go charity shopping in Worlds End. The Stud Gun pump was inspired by a bag I thrifted from there, which someone had gone at with a stud gun,” said Garnett.
The collaboration consists of four different styles – the World's End biker boot, the Biker Girl wool-lined slides, the Soft Rock studded cowboy, and the Stud Gun pump – all an ode to the pioneering subcultures that normalized the thenshocking styles featured in the collection.
Although each shoe features plenty of attitude, detailed with studs and hardware galore, Garnett took care during the design process to ensure that each silhouette was wearable, allowing the shoes to become a closet staple.
The multihyphenate also styled the campaign for the capsule, and, true to form, said that all of the clothing worn by model Bute, whose father was the Marquess of Bute before his death in 2021, was secondhand — a gold lamé shirt Bute poses in being lifted straight from the stylist's closet.
In the U.K., Chilvers has become a household name thanks to Catherine, Princess of Wales, championing her longtassel boots since 2004. The boots are an obvious bestseller, but Chilvers has built a business that now includes men's shoes and accessories.
This collaboration comes a year after Chilvers released a collection with India Hicks, daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten, who had been a bridesmaid at Queen Elizabeth II's wedding and then later a lady-in-waiting to the monarch.