“Our new developments usually begin from a very personal place,” Lily Atherton Hanbury and Katya Shyfrin, founders of Le Monde Béryl, tell Vogue. The women put forward a confident proposition for the perfect flat when they launched in 2016, basing the silhouette on a Venetian slipper: “These simple shoes were made for gondoliers so they could stand without slipping or scratching their boats; not at all technical but understated, ingenious and sustainable. We felt that there was a certain joy in the freedom and ease of movement that these shoes gave, in their lack of pretension.”
Mary-Janes and ballet pumps – rendered in handwoven goatskin, velvet, leather, suede, mesh and calf hair – supple loafers, kitten heels and sandals are all now hero styles in the Le Monde Béryl arsenal, and for autumn, Hanbury and Shyfrin have introduced their first trainer. Coined the Slim Runner for its streamlined shape, the brand’s newest footwear addition, which is fashioned from recycled rubber and the same upper materials seen throughout the collection (including leopard and tiger prints from historic Venetian textile maker, Bevilacqua), is made to “carry you through the day, something that balances tension, the high and the low, the dressy and the sporty.”
Courtesy of Le Monde Beryl
Courtesy of Le Monde Beryl
“We have always loved the running shoes from the seventies and eighties, slim and casual they have a real elegance and simplicity that echoes so many of the original ideas behind the brand,” they explain of how they refined the shape of the Slim Runner. “We looked back to the birth of the running shoe and what that represented stylistically. We made it almost like a collage, each element on top of and informing the next,” they continue.
Look closely, and you’ll find a detail that defines the Le Monde Béryl take on a trainer: they modelled the heel notch, the panel on the Achilles tendon, on a sofa designed by Salvador Dali for Edward James (based on Mae West’s lips), and also Pino Pascali’s lips of Billie Holliday – a flair that they say will carry through to future styles. With a loyal fanbase that counts Alexa Chung, Kaia Gerber and a coterie of Londoners, there’s no doubt the newest addition will be well-received.
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