Austrian born shoe designer, Carolin Holzhuber, has redefined the boundaries of footwear, questioning form and structure with her architecturally inspired designs.
After graduating with a BA in fashion design from university in Vienna, she pursued her fascination with shoes graduating with an MA in footwear design from the London College of Fashion in 2014. She has since gone on to found her own eponymous label, with each of her collections being based on a different form of inspiration, be it the anatomy of the human body, or architecture.
For her latest collection “conjoined illusion”, the London based designer was inspired by symmetry and the Siamese, with each pair of shoes acting like Siamese twins, comprising of 4 carbon fibre soles, all of which are different in their own unique way. It is a collection which combines traditional footwear techniques with the latest and most advances technologies, for example 3D printing for the soles. Her inspiration arises from everyday objects and situations, and her main aim is to make the viewer look more closely at objects and not to simply see things in a single perspective. She aims to unveil all the different parts of an object in order to show hidden beauty. The collection is based on the themes of reflection, mirrors and optical illusion. The mix of angles, distortion and reflection create a Trompe l’oeil effect confusing the eye of the viewer; the shoes appear to change shape depending on your perspective. They aim to challenge the eye and the mind.
She is now designing for both men and women, and producing hand bags simultaneously. It is a brand with big visions, and a big future ahead of it!
