About two years ago, Alex Mill‘s creative director, Somsack Sikhounmuong, sat down with Margaux cofounders Alexa Buckley and Sarah Pierson for a long lunch at Café Cluny — the trio instantly clicked, and now they are launching a footwear collaboration on Tuesday.
“We have been very long-time admirers of Alex Mill’s and Som[sack]’s and fans of the brand, fans of the product, worn the product, and also recognized how much natural overlap we had in our communities,” Buckley told FN, explaining how she and Pierson came to reach out to the Alex Mill team.
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Margaux, a footwear brand associated with ballet flats, and Alex Mill, a clothing brand focused on Americana essentials, have honed in on three shoe styles for this joint venture: the $495 kitten heel Inga Boot, the $325 flat mule Clara style and the $375 kitten-heel mule called Romy. Crafted in satin and suede materials and offered in black, slate blue, burgundy and chocolate colorways, the collection aims to provide elevated comfort to on-the-go city folk — while still embracing a touch of whimsy.
Sikhounmuong said of the curation of shoes, “At Alex Mill, it’s this mantra that we always put everything through: It’s not more clothes, but the right clothes. So it’s not more shoes, but the right shoes. And I think Margaux does a really good job at that. So it’s the idea, if I had to pick three shoes that I needed for women today, or want women to own today, what would the three shoes be? And it was exactly that, it was a flat, a little heel and a boot.”
Pierson explained that the synergy between Margaux and Alex Mill can partly be credited to their shared love of New York, where both brands are based. In addition to the styling, setting and campaigns for the collaboration, the New York inspiration can be seen in the shoe styles themselves.
“We’ve thought about these shoes as things that bring a little bit of elegance and a little bit of glamour, but are also still very wearable throughout busy days, busy lives moving throughout the city,” she shared. “And that’s something that I think both brands speak to in so many of the products that we make, which is that they’re studied and they’re thoughtful, but they’re also meant to be worn. It’s real people wearing real clothes, wearing real shoes.”
For Sikhounmuong, working on a shoe collection has meant bringing longtime creative fantasies to life. This collaboration marks the first time Alex Mill has delved into the heel category.
Pierson recalled, “When we first sat down, I have this distinct memory of Som[sack] putting his hands on the table and he goes, ‘I’ve been dreaming of heels.’ And he showed us all of these sketches in his sketchbook of these beautiful kitten heels and mules and kind of Victorian-style shoes.”
The cofounder explained that those designs swung the door open for their creative journey together: “It was a totally different and unexpected direction, but I think [it] really set us off. It was an exciting starting point where we could really have fun with what we were doing, not just in terms of material and color, but also shape too.”
While ballet flats remain strongly associated with Margaux, Pierson noted, the label has branched beyond its quintessential style as the brand, customer and founders have grown up, and they learned they have the customer’s “permission” to explore different realms. But the Clara style pays homage to the brand’s relationship with flats.
Pierson said, “It was important for us to kind of honor Margaux’s heritage as well in the flats category by incorporating some kind of flat and we’ve designed this very simple, sophisticated, minimalist mule and applied a few different treatments in terms of color and material to make it feel very special.”
Speaking of special, this is a milestone year for Buckley and Pierson, as Margaux celebrates its 10-year anniversary. The cofounders, who were friends and former roommates at Harvard, started the brand together newly out of college.
Looking back at the last decade in business and ahead to the future, Buckley shared, “We’ve learned that the brand is a living, breathing thing, and that means evolution and change. And that is one of the most exciting parts — that there’s really no sense of arrival. It’s this kind of ever-changing, ever-growing thing.”
