CECILIE BAHNSEN PARTNERS WITH CHARLES & KEITH ON A FOOTWEAR COLLECTION INSPIRED BY TRADITIONAL SCHOOLWEAR
Launching in May 2020, Cecilie Bahnsen will unveil a collection of shoes created exclusively in collaboration with CHARLES & KEITH, the Singaporean shoe and accessory brand. The collaboration features four styles, three Mary Jane designs and a distinctive mule –classic shapes reinterpreted by Cecilie each beautifully finished with her signature couture-like touch. The collection takes inspiration from school uniforms, a recurring motif in her designs, Cecilie explains:
“I’ve always been fascinated by school uniforms. I think that explains why I loved the Mary Jane shoe in the Charles & Keith’s collection so much. It’s a traditional school-girlish shoe, but it also has that quality of a masculine-feminine contrast that I’m always looking for. Historically, the Mary Jane was not just a shoe for girls. Right into the 20th century little boys wore them too. We made ours super feminine, more lady than the shoes we’ve done before, working with patchwork and hand-drawn-embroidery. I think the combination of the Charles & Keith classic shape and our touch is very beautiful. It’s been really exciting to see how we can translate our universe into a shoe. It almost felt like we were morphing our dresses into a shoe.”
– Cecilie Bahnsen, Founder and Creative Director
“ Since the creation of our company we have always been supporting young designers in Fashion and Arts scenes. When meeting with Cecilie Bahnsen it was an instantaneous match as it would perfectly combine our shoe-making savoir faire and her incredible knowledge on fabrics craftmanship. We connected immediately when discussing new codes of femininity, her unique take on shapes, volumes and distinctive choice of fabrics.
We are thrilled and excited to work with Cecilie, and thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative process of co-designing this capsule collection of the four designs.
The idea was to be truthful to Cecilie´s DNA, her unique take on women’s femininity and being able to retranslate her poetic dresses into shoes. This Collaboration was also about creating something unique and responsible, have a positive message through the Collection. Therefore, it came as an evidence to upcycle Cecilie’s beautiful fabrics to create a new whole one, a patchwork made bespoke and the usage of a Recycled Satin material for the hand-drawn quilted embroidery styles.”
– CHARLES & KEITH
The collection revisits two of Cecilie’s most precious fabrics, a Recycled Satin applying a beautiful hand-drawn quilted embroidery and a unique patchwork made from Cecilie’s fabrics, giving them a new life. The shoe collection sees the return of patterns and colourways Cecilie debuted at her Fall/Winter 2019 show. The colour palette follows Cecilie’s familiar use of black and white with flourishes of colour, represented here in the lemon yellow Camelia mule. The collection has been thoughtfully made, mindful of using less, with dust bags stitched from leftover cuts of fabrics from previous seasons. The elegantly minimal packaging created as an object on its own, has each shoebox topped with an exclusive print from the campaign.
The campaign was shot on location by Benedict Brink at Herlufsholm School, Denmark’s most prestigious boarding school, south of Copenhagen, traditionally known for educating the sons of aristocracy and the industrial elite.
THE COLLECTION WILL BE EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE ON MAY 2020 AT CECILIEBAHNSEN.COM AND CHARLESKEITH.COM.
The collection will be sold online starting from 250 euros to 350 euros.
