Fahy later enrolled in the prestigious De Montfort University in Leicester, England, which was just a few towns away from Northampton, the shoe making capital of England and home to Church’s, Lobbs, Trickers and many other brands.

After studying one of only three footwear design courses taught in the world and winning numerous design awards in London and Italy, Fahy decided to learn how to make trainers as they require very sophisticated processes and specialized factories. He managed to get a position designing trainers for a large and well known trainer company.

After a year, Fahy realized that the mass produced, plastic and rubber trainers didn’t suit his design philosophy or aesthetic and decided to peruse the luxury/fashion side of the footwear industry.

In 2008, Fahy won the first ever Fashion Fringe Accessories award, judged by shoe designer Manolo Blanik and consequently became the protégé to the British shoe designer Rupert Sanderson. Fahy lived in the Emilio Romana region of Italy, designing in his factory and learning the secrets of Italian luxury and craftsmanship, handed down from father to son for generations.

A year later, Fahy chose to fulfill a lifelong dream of starting his own luxury footwear brand and began his search to find an Italian factory.

Arab News had the pleasure of interviewing Fahy who took us through his shoe-designing journey. 
 

Growing up in Africa, we didn’t have many shops to buy anything and decent shoes were a rarity, so naturally they became a bit of a status symbol. I was constantly frustrated with the lack of choice and was always trying to develop newer and better things. The first pair of sandals I made were what the locals call Mbatata sandals, very similar to Zulu sandals; they’re basically made from an old car tire and never break (I still have mine from 15 years ago). I also had the local tailor down the road make all my trousers and the local carpenter make all my furniture to my own specifications. I’ve been creating my own objects since I can remember, but I always knew I would be designing shoes.
 

The most valuable grounding I had in fashion design was the five years of psychology that I studied in high school. The psychology of fashion design in general never ceases to fascinate me. Fashion and psychology are very closely related, and very often, overlooked by designers.

Every collection and decision that is made in my company has some element of human behavior behind it from the color of our shoes, the lines, the heel heights, when we launch things to very words that we use to describe products is all loosely based on basic principles of psychology.

Occasionally, we do experiments and surveys to try and research deeper into the subject. In fact, we set up a company Facebook page as it’s the most democratic analysis of way of the way fashion impacts people and therefore how fashion is created. I think it is the most accurate measure of perception across gender, age, culture and time of day.
 

I had designed for about 15 multinational companies and several leading British fashion houses before I decided to start my own line. Even now, I still consult and design other designers’ collections. I think the longer a designer designs a range to suit the tastes of another designer or brand, the more of their own individual signature and style they lose. I was very surprised to find out that 90 percent of fashion designers don’t design any of their own collections; they just employ other people to do it. I wanted to create something more genuine and ultimately more rewarding. For me, the most enjoyable part is pen to paper.
 

There were many hurdles I had to overcome to get my first range. It took me a year to find a suitable factory in Italy that could produce our shoes. Our shoes take a lot more work than regular luxury shoes do and most factories were cautious and had no faith in the concept. I then had to find investors with deep pockets who believed in my style and who would pay the huge amounts to invest in the tooling to get a great range, and finally, to convince the luxury retailers that although our shoes are probably the most expensive in the world, their quality and craftsmanship is unrivaled. There aren’t many luxury retailers willing to risk a new designer unless their competitors do.
 

Most luxury shoes take a few hours to make, ours take at least two days and each design is produced in limited quantities to ensure our clients have exclusivity. Many of the large luxury fashion houses produce half of their shoes in the Far East then ship them to Italy, attach a sole and claim that Italian artisans made them. Our shoes are 100 percent Italian handmade in our factory in Venice. Each one of our shoes has a nickel signature on the sole that take more time to assemble than the entire upper of a normal shoe. This is our seal and characteristic signature to prove it’s the real article and is deliberately difficult to fake.

It is this uncompromising dedication to quality and time that makes our product more expensive than other designers, more exclusive than most brands and more unique than other luxury shoes (Not to mention the design awards and industry recognition).
 

I grew up on a snake farm in Africa so, I am very familiar with python, water snake, ring lizard, etc. I can look at a shoe and tell what species of snake, what age and even the gender and so I think knowing your leathers is essential. We invest a lot of time and research into the selection and testing of our leathers. This collection, for example, we have nabuk python, burgundy camoscio, metallic water snake and my favorite: The lazered hairy calf. Every type of shoe requires an understanding of the finish of the skin, the size of the animal and how it will apply to a certain shoe. For example, a python skin is only about a foot wide; therefore making it impossible to make a boot without a seam or to get the scales to line up. Every skin is unique.

As all our leathers come from the best Italian tanneries, we ensure that they comply with the highest standards of ethics set by the international CITIES regulations, and as a result, we work very closely to their production.
 

The promise of quality, the experience of luxury and the memory of looking and feeling great.

For us, it is not just maintaining high standards but always increasing them.
 

It’s important to know the history of the seasons before we plan any future season, however many trends tend to repeat and evolve themselves every 15 years, a bit like a pendulum swinging from popular to unpopular.

For me personally, I have a muse that I base my collections on, having someone in mind to design for gives your creations a personality and character. Some designers just think of the shoe, but I think of the person and the occasion that the shoe is intended for. The context!
 

Most of the styles and looks we create dictate the trends that are seen later on in the year in cheaper retailers. We constantly get style-scouts trying to photograph our collections and send them directly to their factories to copy. Copying is part of the industry and impossible to stop, we just have to make sure we’re always ahead of it. They can copy our designs, but it’s impossible to match our quality. Its important to be aware of a trend, but trends are ephemeral and volatile. I think its better to have individuality.

One of my favorite quotes by Herman Melville:

‘It is better to fail in originality that succeed in imitation’’
 

I believe my aesthetic sentiment was inherited by my parents. They are naturally stylish and many of my designer friends believe their tastes come from their parents too, in much the same way we inherit the way our parents walk and laugh. To me I live shoes and fashion every day, it’s a passion.
 

For me the pros are endless, visiting Venice, the Italian food, learning new languages, seeing a design come to life from a sketch to a sample, meeting people with the same appreciation as I have, I love every minute of what I do as its always changing. The one con is that because I work 7 days a week, I don’t get to visit Africa very often. Where I live is quite remote and hard to get to.
 

Confident, assured, content, respectable and elegant. (The way a man would feel if he was walking through town with two golden revolvers on his belt)
 

The first time I saw a customer was when I was a designing trainer years ago. I was in a train in London and two people in front of me were wearing shoes that I had designed. It was really satisfying knowing that I had a part in creating tomorrows fashions.

The only time I see people wearing my namesake “Liam Fahy” shoes however are on the red carpet, VIP events or during fashion weeks / catwalks. They’re not the kind of shoes people wear around the streets of North London.
 

Any of our ‘Elegant Collectables’ they’re timeless classics and would compliment any style. The ‘Charlotte’ or the ‘Elle’ I would recommend to every woman, like a classic Chanel perfume. We don’t consider these styles as ‘last season’ they are seasonless.
 

Probably the ‘Charlotte’ in blue satin. It has a 105mm heel and a tiny hidden platform that makes you look like your feet aren’t quite touching the ground. The curvature of the arch accentuates your posture and the ankle ribbon makes every woman’s legs look like those of a photoshopped runway model. All the lines are based on a ballet slipper and are made to show off the natural shape of a lady’s foot. They’re stunning.
 

The Alys in burgundy suede and white lazered cavallino. It’s £1500 but it’s a masterpiece. The pattern on the exterior was lazered before being put on the 120mm wedge. At Paris Fashion week, we almost had it stolen three times.
 
What is next for Liam Fahy?

This autumn winter we are expanding our range with limited edition clutch bags and increasing our shoe range to include different heel heights and different classic styles. We have some catwalk collaborations in the pipeline for NY fashion week and London fashion week that we can’t say too much about, we’ve just expanded our online e-boutique to deliver to the UAE and East Asia and are currently looking at finding suitable retailers to stock our shoes in new regions.

We are also starting up a project to get small African charities involved in manufacturing and supplying textiles to Europe.
 
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