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Nicholas Kirkwood closing up shop and hinting at new path

Chloe Burney
01 February 2023

British footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood has taken to Instagram to say "goodbye for now" to his 2005-founded eponymous label.

Kirkwood was among the wave of new designers to storm onto the fashion scene in the early 2000s. Names including Kirkwood, Christopher Kane, and Jonathan Saunders were viewed as the future of fashion in the new millennium.

By 2013, Kirkwood’s avant-garde creations led to LVMH taking an interest in the company and purchasing a stake in the brand. However, by 2020, the luxury fashion conglomerate shifted its focus to super brands and sold its shares of Kirkwood’s shoe empire.

The designer took to Instagram to announce to his loyal following that he was closing the business, as well as sharing a few snapshots of his favourite designs.

In the letter to fans, he wrote: "It's been an immense privilege to bring my vision for a shoe brand to life over the past 18 years. I launched Nicholas Kirkwood in 2005 with a mission to deliver a dynamic new architectural but still feminine silhouette executed to the highest quality I could achieve.

"However, I think, in many ways, the brand has run its course, for now. This coupled with my die-hard passion and pursuit to find viable planet-positive solutions for the intensely un-planet-positive footwear industry, has led me to make the incredibly emotional decision to close the Nicholas Kirkwood brand."

Nicholas Kirkwood continually pushed the boundaries of footwear design, creating never-been-done-before, out-of-the-box silhouettes from disco ball pumps to 80s arcade game-inspired stilettos. Recently, he turned his focus to developing next-generation green manufacturing and material technologies for footwear.

Hinting at a future sustainably-led brand, the designer added: “if successful, I'll incorporate [sustainable manufacturing] into a totally new concept for a brand which in turn I hope will go some way towards a carbon neutral future.”

For now, Kirkwood's followers await his green comeback.

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