Summer 2019 is an exploration of the shoe as an architectural form, where the frame becomes the focus of the Francesco Russo’s work. Subtracting material to the point of surrealism, the designer questions the necessity of matter in the question for function.
Extending the line of an asymmetric pump to its extreme, the inner construction becomes impossibly, surreally transparent. Rather than the support of a shape, the structure becomes at once visible and decorative, in the manner of architecture’s balloon frame, as it lays on the foot as a sandal that nods to the classic pointed pump.
New shapes channel the glamour of the late Seventies. Jerry Hall could have slipped into the season’s gold fishnet sandals to light up Studio 54 while a graphic pleat adds drama to a pure slingback sandal.
The iconic Francesco Russo flame design comes alive in a burst of bracing colours like acid yellow or Klein blue. Meanwhile, he uses skin as another material in high design, offering tantalizing glimpses into weightless structures through radical transparencies that lay bare the very structure of his design.
In considering the shoe as the foundation of an attitude, Francesco Russo transforms the boundary between form and function into a limitless playground.