Revealing the Melissa Aileron’s Secrets!
At the release party celebrating Melissa’s partnership with Gareth Pugh, which took place during the latest Fashion Rio event, the Melissa Aileron was presented, but there was still a lot of mystery behind it. Actually, at that time, we only knew the name and had just the design of the model.
Our curiosity was building, along with yours, and within a very short time, the final version of the Aileron was revealed in a story in the New York Times’ Sunday T Magazine site and, soon after, in Melissa’s online store. The shoe will be internationally released at Seven in New York, Corso Como in Italy, Layers in London and Colette in Paris.
But do you really know everything there is to know about this model? Would you be able to describe the story of the Aileron? Well, we’ll give you the inside track!
Pugh came up with the name Aileron after being inspired by the shapes of ailerons, or the hinged flaps on airplanes wings. The model also references a piece of architecture that Pugh loves so much: the amphitheatre of SECC in Glasgow, Scotland. More popularly known as the Armadillo, the building’s design mimics the shell of an armadillo. From these references came the challenge to create a well-articulated shoe that was also comfortable.
These same references were used in Pugh’s winter ’08 collection, in which the designer took the shape of the ailerons and applied them at the waist, shoulders and cuffs of his models. Speaking of which, that collection was unusual for Pugh. After Beyoncé wore a tube dress by the designer at the MTV Awards the same year, Pugh’s pieces became objects of desire in the celebrity world.
In Pugh’s model developed for Melissa, the coolest details are that the points that stick out from the middle of the sandal. These give it the armored effect and aerodynamic design imagined by the designer.
After all of this insider’s information on the shoe, doesn’t it make you want to get a pair?