After her big debut at Chloé last year, designer Natacha Ramsay-Levi is enjoying the fruits of her labor, as her inaugural collection for the French house is dropping in stores around the world.
On Friday, she was in London to celebrate the opening of a dedicated pop-up space at Selfridges, stocking her spring collection of ready-to-wear and accessories.
“It’s incredibly gratifying. There are two great elements of the job: putting everything together before the show and then seeing it on the streets and in stores. I love how people mix the different pieces; it’s the best feeling in the world when you see that it works on different women,” said the designer, who has been on tour as of late, to mark her collection’s debut. Earlier this month, she was in New York at Saks Fifth Avenue.
At Selfridges, she worked with the French artist Marion Verboom to inject more personal touches to the pop-up space, located in the department store’s women’s galleries. Verboom’s sculptures, which were also featured at the Chloé show space last season, are displayed throughout the pop-up, alongside Ramsay-Levi’s signature lace-up boots, which are already selling well at retail.
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“I love shoes and I think they are the beginning of everything. There is not a look without a shoe. Our spring shoes have been a great success so far and I just want to make sure that I bring out something relevant,” said the designer, pointing to her block-heel booties, which are packed with attitude. She added that when she is designing accessories she is always thinking about making them comfortable for women, hence the edgy, technical sneakers she introduced for pre-fall.
As for joining forces with Verboom, Ramsay-Levi said that she wants to express her aesthetic through many different mediums and is a firm believer in the melding of fashion and art: “The collaboration offers a friendly conversation within the collection. I wanted to show what I love about Chloé across many different disciplines.”
Verboom agreed: “It’s always nice for an artist to dive into different practices. I find a lot of inspiration from Natacha, from writers, from poets — creation shouldn’t be limited to galleries and museums.”
