Know Your Labels: Amélie Pichard

“I started by drawing naked women with big boobs at age 9, and now I make my campaigns with naked women who have big boobs at the age of 30.”

It was never about clothing for Amélie Pichard, an accessories designer based in Paris who founded her eponymous label five years ago. “Women’s bodies are the most beautiful things on earth. Why should I put any clothes on them, especially to show my shoes? For me an era is over; now women can assume their nudity, their sexuality, and femininity. I don’t use naked women to sell shoes — I’m inspired by them to design my shoes.” She goes on, “I design for girls with an attitude; sexy ladies, the ones who assume their sexiness.”

It is rare to find a brand that can execute and glorify overt, almost-cliché sexuality while simultaneously pulling it out from under you, but Pichard has mastered this technique with her geriatric-style lace up loafers: the ostensible preferred footwear choice of podiatrists, and pointed-toe, high heel mules reminiscent of the kind of bedroom slippers you might find on an ingenue-gone-bad — an emblem of seduction. In her world, the podiatrist and the vixen dance together as though veiled by the same filter.

It’s befitting for a woman who cites a cross between Pamela Anderson and Laura Dern as the heart of her inspiration.

Though she says she does not want to “revolutionize shapes,” but rather, “make wearable Barbie shoes [that are] masculine and sophisticated,” in convoluting such disparate points of view, she is tuned in to a new generation of portmanteau-designing that is changing the way we perceive our belongings.

We’re complicated women, right? Our objects should reflect that. This perspective is echoed in her fabrication choices: “I believe using real crocodile to prove that a product is luxurious is useless now. I usually work with cork or materials in contrast with more sophisticated ones. That’s contemporary fashion for me. Something chic and streetwise.”

What’s cool about Pichard is that she can say something like “chic and streetwise” and have it sound honest, as though the balance so many designers tack on to their elevator pitches is an actual cornerstone of her design process. Maybe it’s the whole French thing or maybe, frankly speaking, she’s building a difference between herself and the rest of the women who design for other women. Doing that is one thing — but designing to connect, to get to know your customer and fill in her blanks, so to speak, that’s a whole different ball game.

Shop Amélie Pichard at Farfetch, Ssense.com, or through her website. Want to know more labels? What about Caroline Constas, Katie Ermilio, or these five newish designers?