Footwear designer Amina Muaddi unveiled Brito, a new style made from a single block of Plexiglass that can be worn for a summer full of swimming.
What makes it special and personal, according to Muaddi, is that it is named after her boyfriend Fary Lopes, a stand-up comedian in France, whose family name is Brito.
“My boyfriend has been asking me to name a shoe after him for a very long time. All my shoes are named after people I love or my family. There’s always a personal connection,” said Muaddi. “This whole capsule is based on this single style because it has so much personality. I worked on it for so long and it’s quite a special one for me, so I said ‘Ok, I will dedicate this capsule to you.'”
“He was very happy because he finally got his shoe. He also told his dad because Brito is his dad’s last name as well. ‘Our family name is now a shoe,'” added Muaddi.
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The designer said the creation of Brito, which retails for $795, has been a two-year process — with one challenge after another. To put things into perspective, the usual development cycle in the high-end footwear industry is around six months.
“The shoe is made of one block of Plexiglass and two pieces of rubber straps. I wanted the shoe to represent the iconic Amina Muaddi silhouette in a very minimalistic and sculptural way, and a celebration for the brand’s fifth anniversary,” said Muaddi.
The biggest challenge, according to the designer, was to achieve a quality level of transparency, making everything that usually goes inside the shoe — which in this case a metal stick in the heel to stop the structure from breaking — a part of the design.
“Everything has to be perfect inside out. We had to change suppliers because several of them were not able to do it. In the end, the development was not even done in a shoe factory, but by a supplier that specializes in heels. It is a full-on sculpture. There is no leather sole. It is only one mold that creates the whole thing,” said Muaddi.
The designer would like her customers to treat the shoe as “a collectible item that’s meant to be a wearable sculpture.”
“For now, it’s more like a limited edition project with limited quantities with limited retailers. But let’s see in the future, maybe we will go from here and create other special projects or we will keep this silhouette and make it in different variations,” added Muaddi.
The release of the style, which comes in orange, azure, lotus pink, fluo green, and transparent, was accompanied by a campaign starring Tina Kunakey shot in the pool in Ibiza, Spain.
“We shot the campaign in the pool because this shoe has no leather component, no sole. It cannot get ruined in the water. So it’s also a cool thing that you can wear it when it rains or when you have a pool party,” she said.
It marks her third collaboration with Kunakey, who appeared in the brand’s first campaign, as well as the brand’s collaboration with AWGE, ASAP Rocky’s label.
“I wanted to shoot Kunakey for the campaign because she used to be a professional swimmer. I’ve seen her so many times at work in a swimming pool. She can swim like a dolphin. She looks like a beautiful mermaid and she swims like a professional athlete. I cannot have anyone else in this campaign but her,” added Muaddi.
