Rihanna’s Fenty label and Amina Muaddi are teaming up on a limited-edition shoe capsule dropping on July 15.
Yesterday, the duo staged a coordinated teaser on their Instagram accounts to preview the news. Both posts featured the same shot of Rihanna and Muaddi poring over designs for their new project.
The Fenty post read as follows: “All for the shoes. Our CEO and Artistic Director @badgalriri has been working with cult shoe designer @aminamuaddi on a limited edition footwear release – landing next week July 15th! Get ready!”
Muaddi followed up with: “It’s been an immense pleasure developing this shoe drop for @fenty & @badgalriri! I hope you like it as much as we do! Available on July 15th at fenty.com.”
She also added, “A special thank you to @illjahjah for coping with us.” This part is a shoutout to Rihanna and Fenty stylist and consultant Jahleel Weaver.
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It’s Weaver who was the ‘fixer’ who introduced Rihanna and Muaddi in the first place and as such can be credited with sowing the seed which generated this collaboration.
Shortly after she launched her label in 2018, Muaddi received a message from Weaver. According to Muaddi it went something like this: ‘Congratulations on a wonderful collection. I just wanted to let you know that I bought a few pairs for Rih from Net-a-Porter and Browns.’
“He didn’t ask me for shoes; he just literally communicated that he had bought them for her, that was amazing,” Muaddi told FN last year. For the record, the pulling power commanded by his superstar client means that Weaver could ask any brand to send shoes, or anything else for that matter, for Rihanna and any brand would be only too happy to oblige.
However, Muaddi was touched by the fact that he and Rihanna respected that her label was new and that they wanted to support her financially as well.
In the ensuing months Rihanna has often been pictured in Amina Muaddi’s signature martini glass shaped heels.
Then in December, when Muaddi won the Footwear News Designer of the Year award 2019 she revealed that Rihanna had actually hired her to work on the footwear for her Fenty fashion line.
While they evidently share a similar aesthetic, the two entrepreneurs are also smart women who share the same strategic ethos in terms of the way the run their businesses.
Both have eschewed more traditional seasonal collections and were early adopters of the drop model which they embraced from the get-go. Said model was formerly the preserve of the street wear or sneaker universe and has only more recently been absorbed into the luxury arena.
We can’t wait to see the result but either way it’s unlikely to stick around for long.
When Fenty launched via ephemeral pop ups in Paris and New York last year, there were round the block queues the collection flew off the shelves. Similarly Muaddi’s most recent drop with Mytheresa sold out within hours.
It is also possible that Fenty might retail the limited edition shoes via a similar registration process to that employed by Dior for its collaboration with Jordan.
This would make a lot of sense for two reasons. Firstly, in the current post pandemic climate, there are obviously safety concerns associated with large crowds and secondly the registration model is a close relative of the drop system. Sneaker labels have traditionally operated the two in conjunction.
Watch this space for updates. Meanwhile take a look at this Fenty unboxing from the launch of the Paris pop up last year.
