How a 1,200-Year-Old Ruin in Ireland Became the Pattern for Fall Drop Number One
Every shoe I design starts with a trip or a concept, not a mood board. Our first Fall Drop started in Ireland.
Two years ago, I flew to Ireland with my friend Stacie Flinner to stay at Ballyfin Demesne, a two-hundred-year-old estate in County Laois that's been restored down to the plasterwork.
We spent three days there. Biked the grounds, walked through the walled garden, ate lunch by the lake. The leaves were just starting to turn, that early stage where the green hasn't fully given up yet but you can see the burgundy and rust coming in underneath. It was an incredible contrast, all of that natural beauty outside against the grandeur and glamour of the Ballyfin interiors, which British interior designer Colin Orchard spent nearly a decade restoring room by room.
On our last day, we hiked out to the Rock of Dunamase. It's a ruin about twenty minutes from the estate, a Celtic fortification that was first settled around 800 AD, later held by an Anglo-Norman lord, and eventually destroyed during the Cromwellian invasion in 1650. What's left now is mostly stone walls and the outline of a fortress, sitting on top of a hill in the middle of flat farmland. You can see for miles in every direction. We only saw one other group of hikers the whole time we were up there. It was incredibly peaceful.
It wasn't that there were Celtic knots carved into the ruins. What actually happened is simpler: I started thinking about Celtic knots, not because I saw one, but because of the history of that place, this idea of no beginning and no end.
Interlace patterns like that show up in Celtic art going back to before Christianity reached Ireland, and they became one of the signature motifs in Irish stone crosses and illuminated manuscripts starting around the seventh and eighth centuries, the Book of Kells is probably the most famous example. The idea behind them has never really changed: one continuous line, no beginning, no end.
This seemed like the perfect concept for a shoe, fitting perfectly into my design ethos. I design most of my shoes that way. It starts with the pattern of the shoe, the flat shape that gets cut and stitched around the last, not from a piece of hardware or a stud or a bow that gets stitched on top. The Celtic knot gave me a pattern logic I'd been circling for a while without knowing what to call it: a cutout that reads as one continuous shape instead of a decoration stuck on top of an otherwise plain shoe.
Our first Fall Drop is five shoes. Two are new styles built directly off that idea. Three are new colors and materials in styles you've been asking for.
Meet the Perfect Davis
This one's my favorite from the drop. It's a modified d'Orsay, meaning the side of the shoe is cut away instead of fully enclosed, on the same last as our Perfect Kitten 50mm. If you already know your size in that style, you know your size here.
The cutout on the side isn't just an aesthetic feature, although it looks amazing. It's a design detail, and it also solves a real, known problem with d'Orsays: the open side means less structure holding the shoe to your foot, so they tend to stretch out faster than a closed pump does. I added a reinforced strap along the side specifically to fix that. It's the kind of thing you won't notice when you first put the shoe on, and you'll be glad is there in month three, when a regular d'Orsay would already be loosening up.
Burgundy was never a question for this one. It's the color that was everywhere on that trip, in the leaves, in the door at Ballyfin, in the interiors throughout the house, in the wine we drank.
SARAH FLINT
Perfect Davis 50
Meet the Perfect Blakeney
This is the second new style, and it's the one I keep calling sexy because that's just the word for it. It's also a modified d'Orsay, same design-detail cutout logic, built on our Perfect Pump silhouette.
What's amazing about this shoe is it can make the outfit, but it's also incredibly versatile. Think of it as a more interesting version of a black pump, one that works with everything you already own, with just enough going on at the side to make it a conversation piece.
SARAH FLINT
Perfect Blakeney 85
The Perfect Mary Jane, Now in 100mm
The Perfect Mary Jane has been a fan favorite in black for a while now, at 85mm. This drop marks the first time we've made it in a 100mm heel, and I've had so many requests for the taller version that it felt overdue.
SARAH FLINT
Perfect Mary Jane Pump 100
A Classic, Back in Chestnut Suede
This is the shoe I recommend most to people who haven't been wearing heels in a while. It's got a block heel and a round toe with a slight V cut into the front of the vamp, one of the most fussed-over lines on this last, the kind of detail that keeps a round toe looking elegant instead of blunt and stubby.
Chestnut brown is a new color for this style, and it is the one people have been asking for the most.
SARAH FLINT
Perfect Round Toe Pump 70
Your Forever Favorite in Bordeaux
The Natalie is now in burgundy calf, the color and material combination you've asked for more than any other for this style. It picks up the fall palette in a smooth calf material.
This is Fall Drop Number One. I hope you love her.
Shop the Fall Collection
Available in limited quantities.
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Perfect Mary Jane Pump 100
Regular price $525Regular priceUnit price per$0Sale price $525Just Launched -
Perfect Blakeney 85
Regular price $525Regular priceUnit price per$0Sale price $525Just Launched -
NewPerfect Davis 50
Regular price $525Regular priceUnit price per$0Sale price $525Just Launched
