Paris Fashion Week: Jacques Solovière, 3 facts about one of the classiest luxury shoes brand around the world

Few days before the fashion week, Parisian brand Jacques Solovière, organized the launch of their new collection during a cocktail presentation at their beautiful boutique. I had the pleasure to discover the immensity and the vitality of the work behind it. Everyone knows you never mess with a classic, but that doesn’t mean that the top brands aren’t putting a fresh spin on traditional French shoe styles. Timeless brands, like Solovière, offer new and interesting designs while honoring the traditional derbie shoe style. Launched in June 2014,the luxury shoes brand started out by imagining new classics for men. In fact, “Jacques Solovière's brand values focus on longevity, taste and intergenerational cachet. Creating a balance between beautiful details and practical silhouettes, it combines finesse and comfort in an ultra-lightweight shoe. Each pair is made with the highest quality in the best workshops and factories in Italy. Every detail is rigorously thought out: vibrant colors and luxurious materials are then mastered with precision.”
 

Alexia Aubert was educated at the École Estienne, then at the Lycée d'Alembert in Paris - while simultaneously training as a boot maker with master boot maker Maurice Arnaux, the designer has led a brilliant international career specializing in shoe design. She began as an assistant stylist at Christian Louboutin in 2004, and then took a position as studio manager at Pierre Hardy, where she designed shoes for men and women. In 2010, she moved to New York to head the design of Oscar de la Renta shoes.

To date, she works as a consultant for various luxury brands, including Elie Saab, Mulberry, Balmain and Leonard. In 2014, the designer founded her own label - Solovière, named after the designer's grandfather, tenderly paying tribute to his innate sense of style. The brand was then renamed Jacques Solovière, to better convey the essentially masculine roots of this luxury footwear brand to the market.
 

Valuing a certain Italian know-how and a precise idea of today's shoe, “Jacques Solovière combines finesse and comfort in an ultra-light shoe. Prioritizing the quality of materials and comfort, the brand is part of a certain tradition.” The materials, like fine Italian leather, certainly play a starring role in these shoes, and the artisanal craftsmanship ensures these classic golf shoes are well-made and will last for years. The Italians, quite frankly, are the best and the most skilled leather craftsmen. There is no other country in the world that can match the quality, and this is largely due to the very skilled artisans, the quality hides used in their products and their dye making process. This translates into quality that is incomparable to any other country who produces leather products. One of the reasons Italian leather hides are superior to others, is that they use all-natural items such as vegetable and plant-based extracts to dye their leather (e.g. tree bark, vegetable tannin) and this results in a much stronger and longer lasting leather product. This natural process (vegetable tanning) takes much longer to complete as it is mostly done by hand which can take as long as two months.

If you tend to favor more traditional French shoes apparel or are drawn to new designs with a vintage minimalist feel, look no further than these derbies from Jacques Solovière.—which creates those lovely folds along the tongue—and set atop a crêpe sole. And for the brand, classic doesn’t mean lacking for comfort. These Solovière shoes feature a clean exterior while inside packing the bells and whistles to maintain support and comfort from the moment you step your foot inside.‘’In 2014 we had an idea of creating a shoe that was minimalist, unique and logo-free. I had a clear design in mind, and I needed to find the perfect atelier that could turn our vision into reality. We found our perfect match in a small, family owned factory in Tuscany, Italy. The country where the artisanal shoe manufacturing has been perfected over several generations. We are proud to combine our French designed shoes with the Italian heritage and craftsmanship. Our shoes are produced in limited numbers, which makes them highly sustainable. We take great pride in our quality and design.” says Alexia Aubert, Jacques Solovière's founder and designer.’’
Jacques Solovière is aimed at men of good taste and elegance. The brand has since adapted its concept for women, adapting men's silhouettes to women's feet in a unisex look.