Fashion’s synergy and obsession with architecture and interiors is no secret. Just take a look at the most recent lineups at the annual Salone de Mobile, or peruse the home collections from the likes of Fendi Casa, Gucci Décor and Hermès Maison.
Now, Alexandre Birman has found its own way to tap into the interior design world — and honor its Brazilian heritage along the way. For its spring ’24 collection, the footwear brand partnered with Casa de Vidro and Instituto Bardi, the foundation dedicated to the Italian-born, Brazilian-based Modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi to create a limited edition capsule of heels inspired by Bardi’s designs.
“We were thinking about how to connect art and fashion, how to connect Brazil and Italy,” founder Alexandre Birman told FN at the brand’s Milan Fashion Week presentation. “Lina Bo Bardi was everything — she was an architect, but also a designer; she was into fashion, too.”
Watch on FN
Through a donation to the institute, the brand was able to license the designs of two chairs and a tea trolley that Bardi famously created to use as inspiration for corresponding limited edition footwear styles.
There are the Rocking Mules, based on the architect’s Rocking Chair, where padded suede straps and insoles mirror the chair’s sumptuous suede seating, and a brass zig-zag heel mimics the geometry of the chair (without the actual rocking movement). Then there is the Bola sandal, which channels the brass ball armrests of the Bola chair onto a heel and utilizes leather corsetry from the back of the chair onto the footwear’s outsole.
Finally, the Trolley sandal, replicates the Mid-century modern lines of Bardi’s Tea Trolley from 1948, with leather straps and an angled wooden heel — each one sculpted entirely by hand to the specifications of the trolley’s lines. The shoe also has a leather insole meant to resemble wood, with thin strips of leather pressed together and hand-etched to recreate a natural grain.
The project was its own architectural feat — no pun intended — for the Birman design team. “It looks so simple but it’s all about the angles and how they shift,” said Alexandre Birman creative director Guilherme Kfouri, who noted that it took the design team nearly six months to perfect the heels. “It has to fit properly and be comfortable, but we want to keep the proportions and shapes from Lina’s work.”
The capsule will be a limited edition of 50 per color way, with three colors spanning the three footwear styles, and will retail starting at $1,290. The heels come with a special logo incorporating the Casa de Vidro and Instituto Bardi.
