"I understand that people want to dress up again, but high heels in the office? That's just archaic."
This is Marcia Kilgore, the indefatigable Canadian-born serial entrepreneur, who launched the cult Bliss spas and beauty products in the 1990s, then Soap and Glory, then Beauty Pie and, 17 years ago, FitFlop.
The latter, if you haven't already guessed, is a shoe company that specializes in comfort, but because Kilgore is a talented saleswoman who writes most of the copy for her products, they don't call it comfort, but technology. And they test endlessly.
I don't blame them for avoiding the c-word. Comfort is viewed with suspicion in the shoe industry - a synonym for frumpy. "It's crazy," Kilgore says, hitting her stride in every sense of the word. "You can put a backbreaking fashion shoe on the shop floor and the damage it will do to all the people who buy it is endless. But no one will stop you."
It was such a fashionable shoe from an illustrious French house that gave her the idea for FitFlop. "It was 1999 and the opening party of Bliss, so I bought a fantastic, ridiculously expensive pair of shoes, which I had to take off after an hour because they were so painful." She gave her speech barefoot.
More than twenty years later, Fit Flop is the unlikely go-to for Uma Thurman, Sam Mendes, Damon Albarn and Laura Bailey. Now the designer Roksanda - who presents three of Fitflop's existing styles: the Shuv, a leather clog; the Gen-FF short sheepskin; and the iQushion, a Japanese-inspired leather fit-flop, in her latest runway show at London Fashion Week - unashamedly blends comfort with fashion, while infusing some of her signature artsy, glamorous attitude onto FitFlop, infusing them with her unusual color combinations.
This passion for flats isn't because she's 6 feet tall. "I like heels sometimes," says Roksanda. "But I prefer to save them for a pantsuit. To me, flats are what you wear with a long evening dress. I like contradictions, but at the same time I don't believe in rules. Everyone should wear what he or she feels good in."
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Despite being at the top of their respective games, both women are endearingly affected by each other. Roksanda (who, thanks to her surname Ilinčić, which is difficult for Western Europeans to pronounce, uses only her first name professionally) was immediately struck by Kilgore's tour de force of energy.
Kilgore in turn, says Roksanda, "is... well, Roksanda. I don't even really think of what she does as fashion. It's timeless. It is beautiful. It's cool and so elegant yet easy. But would I ever have picked up the phone if her creative director didn't know my creative director and set it up for us? No."
For luxury, artisanal London fashion labels like Roksanda, collaborations with bigger brands can be a tempting source of income, especially while they are still recovering from the pandemic. Stodgy megabrands are often eager to collaborate with much more interesting fashion creatives in the hope that osmosis will occur - sometimes to the detriment of both parties. Roksanda has been smart about her professional contacts. Barbour, Fila, Lululemon and now FitFlop all focused on exercise and technology that she wouldn't normally have access to. "I really care about functionality and comfort and would like to take this to the next level. Even my most glamorous clients need to be practical some days.
The technology she discovered at FitFlop was, as you might expect, impressive. It took Kilgore years to figure out what kind of person she needed to come up with the first prototypes. "Initially I thought I needed a shoe designer, but although they can make beautiful footwear, they have no idea how it interacts between the body and the ground." She visited universities across the UK, meeting biomechanics and scientists. "47,000 miles later I found the right team at London's South Bank University." Even then, the first prototype looked like "a foaming lump of coal with two ropes. I said, 'I don't care if that thing is a whole yoga class for my body. It's horrible."
Seventeen years on, the British brand, which has its own biomechanical team and now includes a children's range, has been sold in 73 countries and secured £30 million in funding last year to boost its US launch. a conventional beauty. There are no heels or dainty toes. If you don't like flatforms, there's nothing to see here.
But if you do, you'll get a foot massage the entire time you wear them. Without getting too technical, this is largely thanks to a patented micro 'wobble-board' embedded in the thickest cushioned soles that works with the alignment of the body. Over the years, FitFlops have added slimmer soles with different technologies. They are all comfortable, although even with FitFlop you still have to wear a thong between the toes.
The key to happy feet, according to Kilgore, is "to have as much of the foot in contact with the ground as possible - but not with hard pavement. That's where a good shoe comes in handy. Our wobbly boards create the feeling of walking on soft earth." Contact with the ground stimulates the nervous system. "There is a corresponding point for every organ in the body," says Kilgore (this is the central principle of reflexology). "If you stimulate those points on the body, you stimulate all the systems of your body."
I tell her I'm surprised the Shuv is backless, as anatomically I thought it was ideal to get maximum support all the way to the ankle. "That is a misconception. What matters is that a foot must be able to bend completely. If your heel is encased in something that doesn't hold it in properly, that's actually not good for your gait. So a well-designed backless shoe that leaves the heel free to land naturally where it wants is better. When I'm in the office, I wear the backless one in the winter."
While the rise of the 'ugly' fashion shoe paved the way for FitFlop to arrive on more style-conscious feet, no one has yet been able to copy FitFlop's technology. That's obviously a good thing, "but honestly, I'm surprised that with all this focus on wellness, we're still neglecting the health of our feet," says Kilgore. She believes things need to change. "All we have to do is tune in to how much better we feel when our feet are cared for. It's an instinct we still have. After all, we walked barefoot for much longer than in shoes."
