Posts Tagged ‘Holt Renfrew’
Rousseau Rocks
“Is it listening to us now?” Jerome Rousseau said playfully about my miniature voice recorder as I sat across from him and turned it on. He looked stylish with a sort of 60s British edge to him, picture a 5th member to the Beatles in their glory years. But Jerome is a home grown talent hailing from Quebec with an undeniable zest for life that I felt as soon as we exchanged our first words. We talked shoes, his passion for collecting vinyl (he could easily teach musicology 101), the inspiration for his latest collection deriving from the 80s French band Elli et Jacno and his fascination for architecture.
His shoes have been featured in Vogue, Elle and Bazaar and have graced the feet of Rousseau a-list girls such as Charlize Theron, Cameron Diaz, Katie Holmes, Kristen Stewart and most recently Drew Barrymore at the Toronto Film Festival as he enthusiastically emailed me about it a few days ago.
“You can listen little machine” he said to my recorder explaining that what really drives him isn’t necessarily fashion but elements of design, technicality, structure and sculpture. Admiring his shoes I can really tell that he takes great pride and craftsmanship into every little element of his creations; from the way that it fits to the way the heel sits, his shoes aren’t disposable things, they are art. He offered me a rare glimpse into his newest collection for Spring 2010 including a black glitter bootie that became the apple of my eye. The details of the rest I will leave a mystery and let the shoes do the talking once they come out. His current collection featuring my favorite shoe the “Aizza” can be found at worldwide retailers including Holt Renfrew, Barneys New York, Harvey Nichols to just name a few.
When I asked him if he wore his own shoes, he laughed and said he tried heels once when he was 18 and could barely stand up, then took the questions out of my hands and started interviewing me. I’m hoping to one day sit down with him again, share laughs, discuss our new favorite bands and hear about his continuous rise into being one of the most influential young shoe designers of our time, go Jerome!