Edgardo Osorio
“Ergonomic” isn’t a dirty word. When I say ergonomic, I don’t mean Nike. It’s about the fit for high heel —how they fit the curves of your feet and the particular way they distribute your body weight… It’s in our research of all these things that you don’t see, but feel. I think that’s a big part of luxury.
Checking out Instagram is part of his work. I follow a lot of my customers and we actually do mood boards of our clients who hashtag us on Instagram. It’s really amazing to see the diversity: What other kind of shoes they are wearing? Where are they going? What are they doing? I get questions like, “Who’s your customer?” I always want to reply, “Go see the hashtags on my Instagram.
You can see her.”
Unlike some designers, he sketches. I love to sketch. I explain my sketches to my artist and they turn it into a prototype. I fit the shoes on different women with different kinds of feet. It usually involves quite a bit of changes, and my team laughs. They say it’s time for “Art Attack” because I take masking tape and scissors and I start cutting and pasting and completely rearranging the design to fit the woman’s foot.
There’s more to his shoes than meets the eye. My shoes may seem a bit complicated, but you have to try them because they come alive on the feet. Everything is studied… Women think caged shoes can cut their legs [in an unflattering manner], but the way I design my shoes is the opposite. It’s the optical illusion that makes your legs look thinner and longer.