Why the most powerful part of fashion is never the headline name, it’s the hands, the minds, the geometry, the people who build the object.

Fashion loves a face.

A creative director. A front row. A finale bow.

But the truth is: the thing that changes your posture, the thing that makes you feel dangerous, the thing that makes a look click, is often designed by someone you’ve never heard of.

And I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week.

Not in a nostalgic way. In a very present way. Because if you care about craft, you start caring about the invisible.

The Shoe Designer You Should Know

Her name is Nina Christen.

She’s Swiss. Architectural. Bold. Geometric. Specific.

And what I love most is that she designs like someone who doesn’t need to be liked. She knows exactly what she’s doing. If people love it, perfect. If they don’t, it doesn’t change the line.

That confidence is rare.

Nina has worked inside some of the biggest houses, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Loewe, and now she’s at Dior, again with Jonathan Anderson. But what’s interesting is not the résumé. It’s the fingerprint.

You can feel it when a shoe is engineered instead of decorated.

In 2019, she designed what I still think is one of the best shoes of the decade: the square-toe sandal at Bottega Veneta. A simple shift that became a cultural reset. Suddenly everyone’s foot looked different. Cleaner. More graphic. More intentional.

Then at Loewe, she pushed it further, shoes that weren’t “pretty,” they were ideas. The kind of pieces that make people argue. The kind of pieces that make fashion move.

Now she also has her own brand, CHRISTEN, because working for heritage houses means your vision is always filtered through someone else’s DNA. Even if the shoe is yours, it’s still wearing their name.

And when you have a vision that sharp, at some point you need your own door.

Her own line is where you see her without translation.

One shoe I can’t stop thinking about is the Helix Buckle Shearling Sandal 95. It’s aggressive and clean at the same time, like a blade wrapped in comfort. It doesn’t beg for attention. It takes it.

When Your Vision Needs Its Own Name

This part hits me personally.

Because I understand what it means to build inside someone else’s world.

I’ve worked for brands. I’ve designed bags for them. And I genuinely love that work, learning their language, respecting their heritage, making their vision feel alive through my hands.

But starting Pimpinicchio New York wasn’t a business move. It was an identity move.

Having a brand is an extension of who you are, and how you see life in that specific time of your life.

I don’t design accessories to fill a category. I design for people. I design so you feel empowered. Powerful. Strong.

Because my bags have a personality.

And that personality comes from my background, my story, my past. When I wear my pieces, I feel unique. I feel protected. I feel like myself, louder.

That’s what I want you to feel when you wear them.

The Square Desk Theory

My favorite detail about Nina isn’t even a shoe.

It’s her desk.

She works at a square desk because a rectangular desk makes her feel limited. A square gives her space to move ideas around. And when she goes back and forth between offices, she wants the exact same setup, same table, same chair, because that’s where her mind feels calibrated.

People think creativity is chaos.

The best creativity is often systems.

That’s the behind-the-scenes reality no one posts.

The Invisible Roles That Make Fashion

When people say “fashion,” they picture a runway.

I picture:

• the shoe designer
• the last-maker
• the pattern cutter
• the leather technician
• the hardware developer
• the atelier hands who solve the impossible at 2am

Because the object is the truth.

And the object is never made by one person.

A Note on Sustainability (Without the Sermon)

I love leather. The smell. The feeling. The ritual of it.

But I chose a different future for my brand.

Pineapple leather instead, because my choices have to align with who I am and how I live.

So for me, it’s not a trend. It’s a decision. A way of stepping in.

And it’s why we partner with One Tree Planted, one tree planted for every order.

Not to look good.

To do something.

The Friday Five

• The Soundtrack: Miley Cyrus - Prelude 
• The Spot: Salon 9, a design gallery that feels more like a private studio than a public space.
• The Listen: A founder story that reminds you the object always has a human behind it. 
• The Thought: The detail is never small. The detail is the decision.
• The Piece: Trinity Hobo — Pimpinicchio New York

Carry the revolution.
— Francesco Pimpinicchio