Designing My Shoe With Sarah Flint.

Today I wanted to share some of the inspiration behind my shoe design collaboration with Sarah Flint. Getting to design a shoe with Sarah has been an absolute dream come true. If you’ve followed for a long time, you know she is one of my absolute favorites – I think at least half of my shoe collection is from her line? I started out a customer, buying her shoes. We eventually started working together on some sponsored content, and now – the absolute dream… designing a shoe together!

The shoes officially launch on Tuesday but Sarah and her team have given my audience special VIP access to shop the shoe 48 hours before it launches to the general public… you can shop it using this link, starting today! I’ll have more photos (plus a few ways I love styling them) on launch day but today I wanted to share the design process and some of the inspiration with you.

Designing My Shoe With Sarah Flint

The design process was a long (and very fun!) one, kicking off with a trip to Vienna. That trip was absolutely amazing. We saw so much of the city and I felt so inspired!

While in Vienna, we toured Schönbrunn Palace. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. As we toured the (brocade lined) walls of the palace, I felt like I was going to burst from excitement with ideas.

By the end of our visit I knew that I wanted to do something in a satin brocade, in my signature favorite green.

We toyed with a printed velvet (it just felt like a little too much), and thought about doing a gold filigree heel (that would have been too costly) and ultimately started sampling green fabrics.

When it came to the green, I was initially drawn to a more bright green but felt like a darker green would be more wearable. I did an instagram poll and you all agreed. So we decided to move forward with the forest green instead.

This is the green that didn’t make the cut. It was really pretty but it just felt a little bit a) summery and b) less versatile.

After choosing the fabric, we talked a lot about silhouette.

I wanted to mirror the construction of my personal favorite shoe in Sarah’s line: the Perfect Round-Toe Pump. I own this in a few colors and I love it because it’s so, so comfortable but still has a nice height. Sarah suggested doing a Mary Jane style to make it a bit more interesting and special. I hesitated at first but once she proposed that cute pearl button, I was smitten.

The thing we struggled with most was the binding. The initial prototype had this metallic binding which was really pretty and something I would totally wear but I felt it made the shoe a bit too specific… I wanted the shoe to be great at parties, but also pair well with denim. The team was having a really hard time sourcing a tonal green binding. I begged and pleaded (and was probably very annoying!) but they finally found the perfect binding and I felt like that really made the shoe.

Once we had aligned on binding, we were good to go. Here she is, our beautiful girl. Isn’t she lovely?

More inspiration. The plate is vintage Viennese… swoon.