Let your feet go wild!

It’s a love affair that every woman shares with her shoes. And it’s because we can’t have  enough of it that we continue shopping for shoes rather uncontrollably, despite owning a sackful of them.

But where most women drool and recklessly swipe their cards to own all those beautiful sole mates, Payal Kothari’s love for her high-heels was so irresistible, she went ahead and signed up for a “shoe designing course at the Fashion Technology Institute, in New York,” even as she held a day job as a “marketing analyst with Reuters.”

“I signed up for the evening course at FIT, so I would spend my days working and evenings studying,” recalls Payal. Once the degree came through, “I quit my day job and worked at Fifth Avenue as a apprentice designer for brands like Nina Shoes and Delman.” After a successful apprenticeship and an equally lucky break where she managed to wrangle shelf space to showcase her creations at “Bergdoff Goodman, Bloomingdale, Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s”,

Payal headed back home to Mumbai, India, at a time when “there was an absence of brands that had high-heel, comfortable shoes for women.” The qualified MBA that she is, Payal decided to convert this opportunity into a business idea.  An idea that’s better recognised today as the shoe label, Veruschka.

Black shoes are so over
Started around 2006, Payal’s  label today has found it’s admirers in “Fashion designers like Manish Malhotra, Anita Dongre and Rina Dhaka who have used her shoes for their  fashion shows; film stylists like Niharika Khan,” and starlets like Zoa Morani and Tanisha who have been spotted stepping out in a Veruschka.

Wild colours, extravagant embellishments and high on the style quotient, her shoes are extremely distinct and not for the ultra-conservative. “I create every shoe like a piece of art,” she says and rather cheerily adds, “My label’s like a conversation piece today.”

And so, with bright blues, reds, scarves used as tie-ups and gold heels too, Payal’s fashion sensibilities are about getting girls to think beyond black. “Those days of wearing blacks and browns with everything are over. This season,  there’s nothing that goes with nothing. I have designed shoes in canary yellow and with wood-carved heels, too.”

Keeping with her theme of stretching possibilities with shoes, her collection for the recently-concluded Lakmé Fashion Week, 2012 “was inspired by the totems of African tribes.” So, the collection that had Zoa Morani as the showstopper, “used tribal motifs and the colours took inspiration from the birds of
paradise.”

Veruschka at a click
To stay inspired Payal follows “international trends and attends international trade shows.” Rather interestingly, the designer also stays clued into “street fashion.”

“The general view is that the street fashion trickles down from international trends. But the converse is true too. Designers take inspiration from the streets too,” she candidly admits.

The savvy business woman that she is, Payal doesn’t believe in staying exclusive. A quick browse through most popular online shopping sites will see Veruschka shoes up for grabs at a click.

“People in smaller cities, Chandigarh for instance, are fashion conscious and follow trends very closely but on the downside they don’t have access to branded stores as they would in metros. This is where they get online to shop for brands and styles they want. We’ve had quite a lot of orders for Veruschka from these e-commerce sites,” she chimes revealing her plans of setting up a similar service from her own website, too. That will be the next phase of the ongoing love story.