When Marina Larroude launched her shoe brand Larroudé five years ago she knew she had to get the blessing of Candy Pratts Price. Her former boss at Style.com and forever mentor, Pratts Price is famously discerning. I know, I worked alongside her for five years at Style.com too. But if CPP, as we called her, was hard to please, she had a soft side too.
Exhibiting the same flair for a soundbite she did in The September Issue documentary about the making of a 2008 edition of Vogue—her iconic line, “September is the January of fashion” is now an internet meme—Pratts Price was quick to praise her onetime protégé. “Marina could’ve done anything—jewelry, for instance—but a shoe gets you places,” Pratts Price told me at the time. “I support anyone who has courage and I’m very proud of her.”
Larroudé never forgot that, and though she’s partnered with a string of established designers, from Joseph Altuzarra to Libertine’s Johnson Hartig to Jonathan Cohen—Pratts Price was at the top of her collaborator wish list, not least of all because she has one of fashion’s most sensational shoe closets, having worked for many years as the Accessories Director of Vogue and befriending the likes of Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin, and Bruno Frisoni, among many others, along the way. (Frisoni illustrated the avatar for Style.com’s cult classic CandyCast series.)
Now that wish has come true. Together, they’ve made a capsule collection that ranges from a loafter with a wafer-thin sole to a vertiginous pump. “I learned from Candy at Style.com that if everything is in good taste, then there’s no surprise. That’s how she taught me to edit,” says Larroude. “If everything is super-chic and super-classic, then it becomes stale and boring. You need a little quirkiness, even a little so-called bad taste in the mix.”
