With only weeks to go until New York Fashion Week (NYFW), we received a call from Bibhu Mohapatra, New York-based fashion and costume designer, cordially inviting Kkira Feet Shoes (that’s us!) to Manhattan’s fashion destination and pretty much every designer’s dream: New York Fashion Week 2022.
If we could take that moment, bottle it up, and save it forever, we would. To say that excitement was shooting out of our fingertips and bodies would be an understatement. Can you say opportunity of a lifetime?
If you aren’t familiar with New York Fashion Week, it’s a semi-annual series of events where fashion collections are shown to buyers, the press, and the public. NYFW is considered one of the Big 4: four major fashion weeks taking place in New York, Paris, London, and Milan. In addition to the fact that it is not easy for designers to get the opportunity to show their designs at Fashion week, we were also completely reeling from the fact that we have only been around for 2 years and we were already checking off a bucket list item that some designers never manage to do in an entire lifetime… how crazy! And did we mention that the wonderful Bibhu Mohapatra is legendary as far as the fashion design scene goes, seeing as he has had the repeated honor of dressing people like the Michelle Obama and celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, June Ambrose, Kendall Jenner, Iman, Adrianna Lima, the incredible Viola Davis, Taraji P Henson, Priyanka Chopra and so many more? The entire team was a mix of emotions: excited, overjoyed, nervous, and we’ll even admit, a little terrified!
We got to New York the day before the show and there was very little down time! Our awesome team got straight to work, preparing for the next day. Approximately fifteen pairs of Kkira shoes were utilized for the models, and we were so thrilled that the stylist did an excellent job complimenting each of our designs with each outfit.
Backstage was a combination of overwhelming and exciting; there were so many people and moving parts to get this well-oiled machine going. There was a separate space for hair and makeup with teams of 3 to 4 people working on one model at a time! I mean it seems obvious that it takes a village but this was not how we would have imagined it to look like!
Once the models were done with hair and makeup, they moved to the next room where they found each of their outfits setup on a rack with all the items they needed for their first walk. There was a clothing rack with the first outfit, a chair for them to sit on, an image of them in their first look with their name on it and the shoes right next to the chair. Once they sat down, it meant that they were ready to get dressed!
First they put on their shoes and had to go upstairs to do a run-through on the runway, which is when they practiced their walk and got comfortable in their shoes to avoid any surprises. When they came back down stairs, it was time to get fully dressed, and move onto a giant white wall, where photographers captured all of the completed outfits.
This lasted a few minutes, with the room flooded with photographers and interviewers and then it was time for the show. Having the awesome opportunity to watch the show from the audience and watch our shoes be viewed by thousands of people live was unbelievably surreal to say the least!
Our greatest compliment has to have been the one from Bibhu himself who said our shoes were the perfect compliment to the collection and that they brought the whole collection together and breathed life into it! . In addition to that, we were honored to have been in this particular show because in acknowledgment and celebration of Black History Month, Bibhu intentionally chose to use only Black models. Being a Black-owned, woman-owned business it was an honor to be part of something so wonderful and powerful in more ways than one!
And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better than that, we got to watch the one and only Beverly Johnson, the first Black model to be on the cover of American Vogue in 1974, close the show! The idea that a fashion show at New York Fashion Week could feel like a spiritual experience of some kind seems impossible and yet it did! There were tears of joy to prove it! Of course it was totally trippy to meet her in person, let alone sit with her backstage listening to her compliment our shoes, it was amazing!
Some additional highlights came in the form of meeting the legendary Miss J Alexander the runway coach extraordinaire who had the most wonderful things to say about both Mauryn's outfit and our shoes, the delightful Versha Sharma the Editor in Chief of Teen Vogue who was so generous with wonderful compliments about our shoes and how much she loved them and of course the amazing Freddie Leiba the former Creative Director of Harper’s Bazaar, former partner in crime with Andy Warhol and now stylist to the stars ranging from Jennifer Aniston to Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and the list goes on! I mean, is this real life?
And the cherry on top, even the models couldn’t stop talking about how much they loved our shoes and how comfortable they were. One model mentioned that when they walk the runway in other shoes, all they think about is, “Don’t fall! Don’t fall! Don’t fall!” Every single one of them raved about how that’s a thought that never even crossed their mind and how empowered they felt walking down the runway in them! Given how hard we work to combine creativity, beauty, self expression, comfort and function, we were thrilled to hear it from people who have experience walking down runways in all manner of footwear!
By now, you probably get the gist and honestly, we could go on and on, but instead we will leave you with this: Our first ever New York Fashion Week was definitely an experience we will never forget! We are so grateful to the amazing Bibhu Mohapatra for thinking of us to be a part of this amazing collaboration with his stunningly gorgeous designs. Not to mention the honor of his support for a young and up and coming brand like ours!
We look forward to the next NYFW and we cannot wait to regale you with the tales. The entire fashion show video is currently on all our social media channels, so if you aren’t following us yet, don’t miss out. You can find us on Instagram @kkirafeetshoes, Facebook @kkirafeetshoes, Twitter @kkirafeetshoes and Youtube @Kkirafeetshoes! We hope you love it every bit as much as we did!