Aaron, Carla and those jazzy-cool Osborn Shoes

It's no secret that I absolutely heart these shoes; I'm a sucker for finely crafted items and bold prints.

As of yesterday, however, I absolutely heart the designers and the company behind these shoes, too! During my Sunday afternoon stroll through the DUMBO flea in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, I happened to run into Carla Osborn, one-half of the design team that runs Osborn Design Studios.

With her husband, Aaron, she works on a myriad of complementary artistic projects - Toile Wallpaper for Anthropologie, and detailed prints, for example - and of course, the tiny team works on those goddamn gorgeous shoes. She focuses on the design, and he interacts with their CoOp artisans in Guatemala City.

Which is fantastic, because it means that individual, private crafters are receiving gainful employment and are simultaneously having a chance to practice their craft. And on the back end, we're getting shoes that are as well made, individual and as rare as a pre-ordered Hermes Kelly.

According to Carla, "The shoes are individually crafted, based on the sourced materials we have; sometimes only a handful of pairs are made, because we're working with one rare print or bolt of cloth."

And indeed, there was a one-of-a-kind bootie on show yesterday, made out of a print that seemed to be cut from an ancient Chinese Emperor's robe...

LMN Harris

Images courtesy Timeout NY/Osborn Shoes