Snce breaking into the business, model Hanne Gaby Odiele has kept Fashion Week’s moveable feast of street style spunky, consistently shaking up the usual off-duty-model uniform of calculated casual. But as she zips from venue to venue in her moonage daydream ensembles, her feet, as she tells it, have been killing her.
In swooped Matt Bernson, the Tribeca-based shoe designer whose creations resemble his neighborhood’s lofts—understated, refined, and built to last. Together, Bernson and Odiele cooked up a capsule collection of shoes she and her fellow catwalkers could trot in pain-free: basket-weave loafers with a creeper-inspired, neon-speckled cork platform; neoprene slides; and a croc-embossed sandal with a fat foam wedge fit for long walks on the lunar surface.
“I was thinking about something [you] could wear all summer,” Odiele said. “Something that [you] would be able to destroy.”
At the launch party for this very limited collection—where fellow models and ideal customers Anna Ewers, Binx Walton, Kasia Struss, and others sipped champagne and supped from a taco truck parked outside—Odiele and her design partner discussed shoes destroyed and fetishized, and which of Odiele’s colleagues is the fastest runner in the game.
VF.com: What was the last pair of shoes that you destroyed?
Hanne Gaby Odiele: Docs! I love Docs. I use them for festivals and going on camping trips and stuff. They’re not perfectly, honestly, at all. The sole is not perfect because sometimes it’s slippery, but I’ve just always had a pair since I was probably like, eight, or even younger.
Matt Bernson: For me, it was a Common Projects black lace-up sneaker with a gum wraparound sole. They’re so expensive. But I wore them every single day for like, years. I still have them, but I would not want to wear them now.
Who’s the fastest model?
Odiele: It must be some Russian girl. Or it must be Mariacarla [Boscono]! I think Mariacarla might be the fastest!
But who would win in a race between Karlie Kloss and Joan Smalls?
Odiele: Oh, Mariacarla would win over all those guys. Between Joan and Karlie—how many meters are we talking about? It really depends on the day. They would be neck-and-neck for sure, depending on how many blisters they have from the week before.
You have an enviable shoe wardrobe. Do you fetishize shoes?
Odiele: I have a display of shoes. Instead of books, I put my shoes on my book display. And I never wear them, and no one’s allowed to touch them, or even look at them.
Bernson: Shoes are almost like sculptural art, which is why people like to put their shoes on display.
Odiele: I hoard them.
Matt, before you started your line, you were working construction. How has that shaped your designs?
Odiele: For a straight guy, he knows all about making a woman feel comfortable in his shoes.
Bernson: I have to listen to Hanne and my wife and my mom. They’re very opinionated, very vocal. A huge part of it is listening and interpreting what you imagine they want, and if they don’t like it, they let you know.
