As we launch our new Spring/Summer 2014 collection, I thought it’d be fun to show some of the behind the scenes of how a collection comes to life.

The entire process starts with the sketches. We work with an amazing designer, Michael, who is wonderful for a multitude of reasons. 1. He’s been in the shoe industry for decades and knows it inside and out. 2. He gets us, which is not an easy feat. Making shoes that look fashionable but don’t hurt women’s feet is much easier said that done, and right from the start, Michael found ways to incorporate our Flex Innovation Technology into each and every style. 3. He was born in Italy and speaks Italian fluently. I cannot overstate the importance of this when dealing with Italian shoe makers.

So way back over a year ago Michael started sketching. He sent us rough sketches (I say rough even though these drawings are 10x better than anything I could ever produce) of a bunch of different styles- multiple ballet flats, multiple wedges, all kinds of sandals and heels, etc. You can see below the initial sketches we received of the shoes that eventually became Edie and Tess:

These sketches serve as a starting point- from here we start discussing what works, what doesn’t, and which styles we want to move forward with.  For our Spring/Summer collection we started with around 30-40 sketches which we narrowed down to around a dozen and Michael kept tweaking. Here are some of the more detailed sketches further in the process:

At this point things like the type and color of leather to use haven’t come into play yet. This is all about getting the function and design right, and we go through multiple (MULTIPLE) iterations of these sketches trying to figure out which styles are going to be best for our line.

Next Up: Prototypes