As a wedding dress designer, Danielle Frankel sees a lot of different brides come into her atelier—but not a lot of different bridal shoes. “We see the same shoes. And they’re great shoes!” Frankel says from her New York atelier, surrounded by her own white gowns. “They are just the same.”
This felt strange to her. Most women, after all, take great care to try on dozens and dozens of wedding gowns at different stores to find one that feels unique to them. Why were they all settling for the same pair of heels? So, Frankel decided it was high time to give brides more options.
This fall, she will launch a bridal shoe line online and in select retailers. Designed in New York and made in Italy, it includes 10 pairs of heels, sandals, and flats.
Photo: Paul Kooiker
Many of them embody the house codes that have become synonymous with Danielle Frankel: the design of one pair of heels, for example, is reminiscent of the peeled-back silhouette of one of her dresses. “We did that with a neckline and now they’re translated onto a shoe,” says Frankel. “I think that is really cool—how we were able to have that transition from the clothes to the shoe. You see the connection between the two.” Another, meanwhile, features a nod to Frankel’s distinctive take on drapery.
Arguably the standout shoe from her collection, however, is a pair of handpainted heels. “It’s almost treated as an embroidery,” she says of the intricate design, in which the shoe’s vamp serves as a kind of canvas. (Frankel says she was inspired by the Impressionists, and wanted them to provoke an emotional response.)
