When Jonathan Cohen returns to New York Fashion Week today, he’ll be bringing along a trove of footwear to match his signature hand painted prints and textured fabrics that will walk the runway.
The designer, who is showing at NYFW for the first time since 2020, tapped buzzy label Larroudé and founder Marina Larroudé to create a capsule of footwear for his spring ’24 collection, which shows on Saturday morning at the Hotel Chelsea.
“Marina was one of the first editors to see our collection at Style.com when we started the brand,” Cohen told FN ahead of the show. “It was instrumental in our growth, and she gave us such good advice and support. This collaboration feels like a full circle moment.”
The duo started with existing Larroudé styles and worked to apply Cohen’s prints and hand made, upcycled embroideries from the ready-to-wear onto the shoes. Cohen was already using the brand’s bestselling Dolly platforms for fittings in previous collections, so the silhouette was a natural starting point. They also added Larroudé’s Ivy ruffled flat slide sandal and the Kate knee-high stiletto boot to the mix.
Cohen looked to both punk rock and Impressionist paintings to inform the spring ’24 collection, and those aesthetics and corresponding prints and textures were carried over to the footwear. The Dolly and Ivy are both done in colorful poppy prints, while a series of boots showcases Cohen’s strength in upcycling fabric scraps and materials (a practice the designer has been implementing for some time now, through his ongoing Studio project).
The pièce de résistance in the footwear capsule is the Kate boot, done in black leather with floral appliqués made from scrap leather and studs.
“When sketching and developing, I kept dreaming of these leather floral applique boots. When I finished developing the prints and jacquards for the collection, I knew they would be perfect on a shoe because of how the repeat was,” said Cohen, who has collaborated with footwear brands Teva and Dr. Martens in past collections. “I have always felt that our prints and treatments would lend themselves well to accessories. We are always pushing ourselves to find new and innovative ways to use our fabric scraps and have been wanting to try this studded floral technique on shoes for quite some time. I loved the result.”
For Larroudé, the collaboration was an opportunity to put the brand’s new Brazil factory and New York area warehouse to the test.
“We have our own factory now and it’s something that we have always wanted to do, to be able to do a pre-order and send directly to the client,” said Larroudé.
“I enjoyed doing something so unique, working with these hand works and doing our shoes in Jonathan’s own point of view,” she added. “This is how we like to work with other creatives.”
The footwear is available for pre-order now, with a late November delivery window.
