Julian Louie makes eye-catching Ikat shoes for Aldo

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Santa Cruz-raised and New York City-based designer Julian Louie is the much buzzed about young man in the fashion community whose first runway show was just last September. Louie was trained in architecture but honed his natural knack for fashion after a few in-house internships, including one at Calvin Klein.

Recently mall-chain store Aldo tapped him to design a capsule collection and the result are striking Ikat wedges that are as cool as they are treacherous. The designer cites the photographs of Pieter Hugo as his inspiration for the Aldo collaboration and said in a press statement that “the shoes were meant to be intricate and bold, baroque and minimal at the same time. The prints were treated as a texture. So the end result became not about any one pattern but about the use of pattern in general.”

Mission accomplished. He certainly utilized pattern. The only way to pull off this style is with a really minimal ensemble, much like the clothes Louie tends to design.

The Julian Louie shoes for Aldo are in Aldo stores for $125.

-- Melissa Magsaysay