Women's
Conversation With: Charlotte Olympia’s Charlotte Dellal
Charlotte Dellal, it-girl and designer of Charlotte Olympia shoes, sat down for high tea at London’s private Mark’s Club in Mayfair, where she screened her short film ‘To Die For’ during London Fashion Week.
Charlotte Dellal
Dellal’s mother Andrea Dellal, the former model and stylish socialite, TV personality Olivia Palermo and French actress Josephine de la Baume were all on hand as the designer introduced her covetable fall collection over delicate teacakes. A graduate of Cordwainers, the prestigious college that also produced Jimmy Choo, Dellal has a London shop that opened last July.
NM: Could you tell me about your Spring collection which is in stores now?
CD: ”Blame It On Rio” is the name of the collection. Because I am half Brazilian, I always wanted to see something a little bit inspired by Brazil. It’s such a vast country with so many aspects to it. And then I’m always inspired by pin-ups and the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. So last season I was inspired by Carmen Miranda and her fruit hats. That was kind of my starting point. That’s where my banana bags came from, and my fruit shoes. That’s where all the color comes from—the fruit, obviously—although everything is always colorful anyway. The prints, we do our own prints in-house. We have a pineapple print and this palm tree print. But it was all inspired by Carmen Miranda really.
Carmen Miranda-inspired shoes for Spring 2011.
NM: So tell me a little about your Fall collection.
CD: The collection is called “To Die For,” so it’s a bit tongue in cheek. Agatha Christie is one of my favorite authors, and so I started there. I love all her books and a little who-done-it. Again, I referenced what I call the good ol’ days, so it’s old Hollywood, but I guess it’s a little bit before, more English and British, using all of her characters. When you’re designing shoes its very hard to say what a shoe is inspired by or who a shoe is inspired by until you see the collection as a whole or put it in its element, which in this case is the Marks Club because it is quite an English, cozy club. It’s [the collection] full of rich velvets. I have a shoe named Arlene from a character in Agatha Christie’s Evil Under The Sun, which is my favorite book, and I made an Arlene hat to match like one of the costumes she wore in the movie. So, it’s all kind of Twenties and Thirties decadence, and everything is ornate.
Fall styles.
NM: So you have started to branch into hats as well?
CD: Well, I collaborated with a fantastic milliner called Victoria Brown. She made this hat I’m wearing as well. I haven’t started to make hats, we just collaborated for this project and I have a shop, so we will see. But I am always wearing a hat myself; so I thought it would be fun to do a couple. Also I did a short film this season, so it made sense. It’s a little who-done-it movie that’s a little more surreal. It’s more visual, showing the essence of the collection, the mood, and the environment.
NM: Whom do you design your shoes for? Do you design for yourself or somebody else?
CD: I started off designing for myself, sure, because why make something I wouldn’t wear? I like to make something I would wear, that flatters the foot and is comfortable on women. So I test run all my shoes, so to speak. But now it’s evolving, the business is growing, and I’m getting a broader customer base. My heels are going a bit lower sometimes. You know not everyone wants to wear heels all the time like me, all day, everyday. I do a couple of flats. So yeah, its for me and the girls around me; my mother, my friends. I design for myself, what woman wouldn’t? I like to say I would wear these.
NM: How do you get dressed?
CD: A lot of the time I start from the shoes up. I focus a lot on the shoes and accessories—I love gloves, I love hats, I love shoes, I love bags. I always wear something a bit more classic. I like wearing blouses, and trousers with shirts, and little dresses. But accessories are always the focal point—I like hats and shoes.
NM: Is that why you decided to do shoes?
CD: Well, I went to London College of Fashion to do my foundation course in fashion, as one does. They always encourage you to do a foundation course, just to make sure you are extra certain you want to do what you think you want to do, which in my case was clothing and corsetry. And luckily I did the foundation course, because I switched to shoes. So then I went to Cordwainers. But this collection I made some gloves for fun. All the extra things I do, again I guess it’s for myself, for the fun. Maybe I will sell them, like I have stockings so I’ve gone into hosiery as well. A lot my stockings come with the shoes anyway, so if you get red shoes you’ll get red stockings in the box, blue with blue. A lot of the things I make are influenced by the collection. For instance with this collection, gloves made sense and at the end of the day if the buyers buy them, then I’ve got something to put in my shop. So it’s almost part of the brand. Though it’s not just shoes, it’s mostly shoes. That’s the starting point…. the hosiery was influenced by a particular shoe and the hats were influenced by a shoe.
See Charlotte Dellal’s style journal via Vogue UK.
See the Charlotte Olympia film “To Die For.”
