The Shoe Goddess has featured Larare shoes numerous times in the past, but now we have the unique opportunity of getting to know the design genius behind the women’s shoe line, Nathalie Elharrar. Elharrar is no stranger to design, in fact, she has a resume that would make any fashionista quite jealous. The French shoe designer resides in Paris and has worked to expand accessories collections for Balmain, Guy Laroche by Michel Klein, Michel Klein, Thierry Mugler and Lagerfeld Gallery. She also created the Paule Ka shoe collections from 2004 to 2007, where she brought very futuristic, plexi-glass high heels as the center point of the collection. Whilst freelance designing, Elharrar went out on her own to create her first collection of women’s shoes, Larare, in 2007. Since then, the line has exploded with truly inventive styles, beautiful architecture and a design aesthetic that is all her own. She also teaches the “Art of Creating Shoes” at Institut Francais de la Mode. The Larare collections are glam, luxurious and edgy with just enough rock and roll to literally rock your socks off, and slip your feet right into her gem niche in the footwear industry. She draws inspiration from female comic icons, like Barbarella, alongside the fantasy behind hero’s stories. The result of her Spring/Summer 2010 collection, titled “A Sharp Wing of a Butterfly” is effortlessly stunning, with details that are of a true artisan and shoes that prove this designer has hit the ground hard, and isn’t going anywhere.

The Shoe Goddess (TSG): When did you first become interested in shoes?

Nathalie Elharrar (NE): In my childhood. I’ve always been watching shoes: mine, my mother’s and women’s shoes around me. And very early, I started to have my own way to choose the right shoes I wanted, despite my mother’s sensible opinion – never mind the price. If I found the right ones, I was ready to spare money for it. But I’ve really been involved in the world of footwear since I was 19, when I started working during my summer vacations, and by complete hazard, for a little shoe factory while I was still studying at the Fine Art School of Toulouse. I was totally thrilled by the design process from sketches to the final sample, and the idea of learning to make shoes by myself. At the same time I was hanging around with a bunch of gay dandies, who involved me in a reflection about culture and fashion, and shoes – already a passion for me – were a good field of experiment….

TSG: Who or what inspires you most?

NE: A bunch of different things as I have very different fields of interests at the same time. There’s always the question of gender, the sexual appeal of shoes and how to figure out what can be appealing without considering the traditional way people consider it? Museums too are very good places to go alone where I have time for drawings and dreaming, and books obviously – I’m a big reader… I mostly start each season by working on what I didn’t conclude in the previous one, and some visions come by themselves. A mix of technical research, materials and colors and specific techniques I have found randomly, all coupled with the instinct of the season, which usually concretizes itself in a story.


TSG: Can a woman ever have too many shoes?

NE: This question reminds me actually the crazy collectors who have too much shoes to still enjoy them. Yes and no. It’s very exciting to covet an object of desire, which you discover after long research and which becomes a real match with you unwilling desires, but not let this feeling overwhelms your resources and being repetitive. And I’m not very good at buying tons of stuff that I know I won’t have enough days in my life to wear, and actually I’m pretty faithful to what I really like.

TSG: Talk about the inspiration for your latest line.

NE: For summer 2010, I’ve spent times at the Branly Museum of Former Arts, and at the Brera Pinacoteca in Milano. I also watched butterflies images, observed the drawing of seaweeds, looked for woven leathers with a tribal but rich aspect. While hanging around in LA on venice beach, I discovered a guy making strange bracelets of burned steel which were my starting point for the group “bijou”. And putting all that together in a reverie drove me slowly to a complete coherent collection.

TSG: What shoe must every woman have in her closet?

NE: A good pair of high heel low boots, and a perfect pair of sandals, with a very strong style which makes it wearable for a while… and a perfect pair of sneakers!

TSG: If you could bring only one pair of shoes on your next trip, what would they be?

NE: A pair from my last winter collection, the Polly black suede boots as I feel very confident wearing them.

TSG: What shoes are you wearing now?

NE: That’s funny, you know, because I’m teaching about shoes in a fashion school and it’s almost one of my first questions when we start the class. Right now, it’s Sunday afternoon and when I stay home I usually wear a pair of mellow black Pumas I bought in LA in a skater’s shop. But I plan to wear a personal version of my Cordelia (I opened them on the toes, just as a try and love them that way) for my next appointment later in the afternoon.


TSG: Which shoe designer has inspired you the most?

NE: Not really a specific one. I’m more on a permanent observation of the edgy proposals brands make mostly for press and shows, but there are brands like Prada that I really admire for their capacity to assume strong statements despite the general stream and the weight of commercial distributions.

TSG: Any plans to expand your collection beyond shoes?

NE: I have a huge temptation to do more: men shoes, children shoes, bags, belts….and even furniture. But still I’m cautious with the development of my brand, which I need to be first known for my women shoes collection. That’s my first priority.

TSG: What celebrity would you love to have wearing your shoes?

NE: Well, I like strong personalities like singers PJ Harvey or Peaches, actresses Tilda Swinton or Natalie Portman. Or Miss Platinum, a German-Romanian born R and B singer who wears my shoes and whom I like very much.

TSG: Where is your line going for AW10?

NE: To a winter garden, a European one, full of haze, cold, and beauty, with labyrinth paths and exotic plants asleep in the cold. I will use faded grey, pink and petroleum colors that are weirdly colorful from my point – my closet is mostly a black, dark one – and wooden heels with transparent colored glazes, spine of leathers with a bark aspect, suede calf…

TSG: What is your design process?

NE: That’s a big question because it’s always changing and never the same…. Several strategies put me at work. I’m always a bit afraid to start designing again, going back-to-drawing-board like it was some kind of a crime. Maybe it’s feeling of guilt in the fact of having so much pleasure in creation? When I start a collection, I have to give up with the one before, and be able after few weeks to see what are goods themes I haven’t explore yet as well as what I should have done… Each collection drives me to the next one, and I always sketch a lot, usually out of my office. I feeling like I’m not working when I’m in a crowded bar, watching people around me peacefully and almost drawing automatically. In those moments, everything can be a start to a new model. I’m traveling a lot, and it’s one of my best sources. Being away from home, wandering randomly frees my mind, and step by step, inspirations come from everything, and the rights words, images and sounds find an echo in my own feelings. After that, I sketch to a completely different, active mood when I have a bunch of drawings. Editing and assembling them by style and family and looking after technical skills leads me to a reflection about the shoe’s construction and lines, and meaningful colors that fit the story I tell… It’s a mix between completely an irrational creative processes, not at all connected with the fashionable trends, and a very architectural and constructional spirit, adjusting together all the different needs of a shoe collection with the former work of drawings which enlighten the process. I could write about creative process for hours, it’s always weird because it’s not a rational thing…

TSG: Where are your shoes made? Where do you source your materials?

NE: Everything is made in Italy, the materials, leathers, components and a good part of the accessories. I like to involve others designers in my work, like Alice Hubert for example, who in my last summer collection made the ankle silver bracelet of the “bijou ” shoe line.

TSG: What do you want women to know about your collection?

NE: We can do special personal orders, and design unique models. It’s pretty expensive but very enjoyable for me to do a special pair for a special person who will inspire the shoes I will design for her.


TSG: A word to our readers – anything you would like to add?

NE: A good pair of shoes is the one that makes you confident in yourself!

Nathalie Elharrar is a true inspiration. The wooden heels note the biggest change of this collection from her past collections. Her inspirations from Barbarians and Seaweed are eclectic and lend us her creative mind for a moment. These focal points of the collection make us realize just how creative a designer can be, when put to their art. All of the shoes pictures are from the designer’s SS 2010 collection, drool-worthy, I know!