Best foot forward: Paris Texas is the fun and feisty Italian footwear brand you need on your radar

Annamaria Brivio, founder of Italian footwear brand, Paris Texas, has been impacted by coronavirus.

“I know many, many people who are suffering. Most of them are okay in their homes, but it is a scary time for Italy,” Brivio ruminates from her home in Monza, Northern Italy. “If you’d have told me last year that this would happen, I couldn’t have even imagined it."

Monza is the third largest city in Lombardy, which - at the time of publishing - accounts for 8,656 or 56.3 per cent of Italy's total declared deaths from coronavirus. The factories in Tuscany where all of Paris Texas’ shoes are made are closed for the foreseeable, which has caused concern for Brivio.

“I’m nervous that when the stores can re-open, they will still have so much of our current season shoes to sell, that they won’t have space for our new season boots,” Brivio muses (she is the midst of finishing the designs for pre-fall.) “But our supply chain is stuck, so what can we do?”

In a bid to use Paris Texas as a conduit for aid, Brivio has recently announced that her boutique Norrgatan (which stocks covetable labels Alessandra Rich and Amina Muaddi among others) has donated an undisclosed sum (she wouldn't disclose figures) to the city’s main hospital, the San Gerardo Hospital.

It was through Brivio’s Monza-based store that Paris Texas came to life in 2015. Similarly to the genesis of many small brands, Paris Texas was born out of 35-year-old Brivio’s apathy for the then-trend of vertiginous heels and beige colour palettes.

After struggling to find footwear which offered style, support and the stamina to transcend trends, Brivio stocked a few pairs of mules in Norrgatan - which she opened in 2012 - and they sold out instantaneously. Economics graduate Brivio who had, until this point, earned her stripes working in buying for various Italian brands, noted that there was clearly a gap in the market for wearable and fashion-focussed footwear at an accessible pricepoint. Enter, Paris Texas.

“I noticed this gap for beautiful, fashionable shoes which you can wear from breakfast to aperitivo time,” she recalls. "Shoes which were chic and fun but also really, really comfortable."

And just like that, Brivio’s bellissima boots were born, swiftly followed by snakeskin slingbacks and various other feather-adorned friends. The kind of shoes that take you for a walk, rather than the other way around.

Paris Texas’ designs have been championed by the likes of Emily Ratajowski, Eva Chen and Chiara Ferragni, and were a staple on many of the street style set’s feet during the most recent autumn/ winter 2020 fashion month.

Indeed it was when Ratajowski posted an image to her Instagram of her wearing a pair of Paris Texas snakeskin boots in September 2018 that the label was properly plotted on the fashion map. The social buzz this created perhaps offers an explanation to the label’s turnover, which rose fivefold between 2018 to 2019.

The beauty of Paris Texas’ aesthetic lies in the power of juxtaposition and contrast: bold patterns and colours designed in a slew of sleek, yet comfortable styles. It’s in this vein that the brand’s contradictory moniker was conceived (rather than a reference to the 1984 Wim Wenders film.)

“I love that in Paris style is elegant and sophisticated and nonchalant, while in Texas it’s a little bit edgier and rougher, but together they manage to complement each other,” Brivio states. “That’s what I feel Paris Texas embodies as a brand.”

Contrast is a key theme for Brivio, who announces that their ability to clash their fashion is what she appreciates most about Londoner’s sense of style.

“Londoners can be rock ’n’ roll and quite grungy but also elegant and conservative at the same time and I just love that contrast. The miniskirts, the hair, I love the attitude of being very proper and British but also being very .. Kate Moss,” she laughs.

Perhaps heady ambitions are difficult to cultivate while Brivio is having to weather an epidemiological storm in her native country, but what’s next for a brand so delicately straddling the cusp of achieving cult-status?

She modestly announces, “When we’re eventually back to normality - and who knows how long that will be? - our plan is to grow our website and improve our interaction with our customers online and perhaps also organise a digital campaign.”

Regardless of what the future holds for the brand, Brivio is adamant about one thing: she does not design shoes to be merely a "trend."

“I love the idea of women who love fashion, but don’t just buy into trends," she explains. "The women who love dressing for themselves and wear fashion to please themselves."

The ultimate invitation to take a pair of her boots for a spin, as if you needed persuading.

Scroll through the gallery above to shop Paris Texas’ most recent spring/summer 2020 collection.

Read more

The spring/summer 2020 fashion trends you're about to see everywhere