The Edelman Family Business
Sam Edelman’s trendy shoes have won celebrity fans like Katy Perry, Rachel Bilson and Jennifer Lopez. The designer’s son Jesse Edelman, 29, spoke with NMdaily at Northpark Dallas about…shoes!
NM: How would you describe your Spring/Summer collection?
JE: The Spring collection is rocker chic meets bohemian. For Summer it will be more open with a lot more prints and color. We really like suede for summer. You would think that suede is too heavy or dark for summer, but that’s not true at all. Suede can be so light and fun and it ads so much depth to the color. Fashion is ever changing so you have to grab what you believe in and put it out there. We’ve been doing rock n’ roll or motorcycle and hippie for some time but we change it just a little each time. We’ll inject a western influence, and then it becomes bohemian, and before that it was gypsy. It’s ever changing. The sneakers we have now with the studs on them, we like to call them model-off-duty. We imagine a model that wears heels all day, who is very sexy at work, but then she wants to go play or she goes shopping. She’s comfortable but she’s still cool and trendy.
NM: Do you have a signature piece?
JE: At the moment it’s the Lorissa – the peep toe pump with the studs up the heel.
NM: Who designs your shoes?
JE: My dad, Sam, is the designer, and there is a design team that helps execute his vision. What I have started to do in design is take pieces that are working from past shoes and put them into new products and keep it going. A shoe never really dies, you can revitalise it very simply with a great new material or by putting flat silhouette on a crazy platform heel. My father has had the brand for about 10 years. It was developed to offer women attainable fashion at a great price.
NM: So Sam Edelman is really a family business?
JE: I’m third generation. My Grandfather was in the shoe business, my parents are in the shoe business, and now I am. I work in all areas from production to design to sales to marketing. I really like production because I can take the item from concept to completion, all the way to seeing it on the customer’s feet.
MN: How can you explain women’s relationship to shoes?
JE: Women need shoes! Shoes create an excitement and emotion that I can’t explain. It’s almost chemical in a sense.
NM: Where do you get your inspiration?
JE: Living in New York you see all types of women walking to and from the office. It changes when we shop Europe and the world for trends. We see something and believe in it and then figure out how to execute it. Personal style isn’t something you can define, but you can be inspired by it and interpret it and offer it back to the customer. But I think my mother is also my muse. She’s got great personal style and she has a line of her own.
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