{"id":3963,"date":"2026-05-02T04:55:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3963"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T04:55:00","slug":"the-designer-behind-diors-wildest-shoes-is-breaking-all-the-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/?p=3963","title":{"rendered":"The Designer Behind Dior\u2019s Wildest Shoes Is Breaking All the Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dior\u2019s design director of shoes, who launched her eponymous brand in 2024, reveals the maverick inspiration behind her extraordinary creations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"nina<\/div>\n

Nina Christen is not only one of the hottest shoe designers of her generation \u2013 a woman who has challenged the aesthetic orthodoxy again and again, and bent it to her vision \u2013 she is also the personification of a divided moment. I am not talking about the fact that Christen, 40, splits her time between heading up the footwear operation at Dior and running her own eponymous brand, which she founded in 2024, although there is that.<\/p>\n

I am not talking about the fact that, as a Swiss-Chilean, hers is both an unusual and a compelling dual heritage. (\u201cI am way more Chilean,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI love to eat!\u201d) I am talking about her shoes, which are all remarkable, whether in a loud way or a quiet way, yet which can be split into two different categories.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take the offering at brand Christen as a starting point. On the one hand there are her fantastical Helix chain sandals, all 3.7 inches of them, in cream or black lambskin. These are not shoes for the earthbound. They\u2019re about fantasy, the sort of fairy tale that is indubitably \u2013 given the slight edge of kink to them \u2013 of an adult variety. Contrast those with her bestselling black leather shearling-lined Big Bootie slip-ons, which, despite their outdoor soles, look like the most glorious slippers imaginable. These are shoes that make you feel existentially supine, blissed out even, just looking at them. They represent another form of luxury.<\/p>\n

See also: Are Clashing Prints Ever Truly Chic?<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"nina
\u00a9Bilal El Kadhi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Christen\u2019s creations for Dior are also gloriously divergent, what unity there is coming in the form of their creativity and their rigor. The current collection encompasses everything from a croc-effect Derby with a distinctive D-shaped toe and an decorative eyelet formed by the \u2018O\u2019 of \u2018Dior,\u2019 to a Marie-Antoinette-ish mule that is a world away, the Aurore, all spindly heel and rococo rosette.<\/p>\n

The latter is Christen\u2019s favorite of that collection (\u201cI like the way the rosette adds a geometric volume at the end of the silhouette\u201d). I worry that I can\u2019t find a grown-up way to describe my favorite, the chic yet ever-so-slightly surrealist kitten heels that appear to have sprouted bunny ears. Turns out I needn\u2019t have worried. \u201cThat was my inspiration,\u201d laughs Christen. \u201cBunny ears!\u201d Yes, she has a sense of humor!<\/p>\n

Most fantastical of all are the lily- pad heels that were seen on the most recent Dior runway, for fall\/winter 2026, which was suspended over the waters of the Bassin Octogonal in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. \u201cIt stemmed from this poetic idea of walking on a lily pad,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat would that look like?\u201d More like sculptures than shoes is the remarkable answer; like a Disney creation but also like the epitome of cool. They are bound to be a hit when red-carpet season kicks off in the fall.<\/p>\n

See also:\u00a0The Royal Family\u2019s Secret Weapon? Fashion<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Christen
Christen Edge T-strap sandal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Year in, year out, Christen has designed shoes for an array of brands that are unlike anything that has ever been made before, yet never feel effortful or wrong; or they might feel wrong at very first glimpse, but they quickly become the epitome of right.<\/p>\n

The Lido sandal that she created in 2019, early on in Daniel Lee\u2019s zeitgeist-conjuring tenure at Bottega Veneta, for example \u2013 with its spatula toes and almost comical exaggeration of the brand\u2019s signature intrecciato \u2013 was part of what transformed the fortunes of that house. The following year her Puddle boots, again for Bottega \u2013 part-Paddington-bear, part-urban sophisticate \u2013 dialed up the cartoonish-ness further still, yet were also (that signature Christen alchemy at work once more) strangely chic. \u201cI loved the idea of making a rubber boot look elegant,\u201d is how she puts it.<\/p>\n

\"Christen
Christen Helix pump in Djerba calfskin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What motivates her, she continues, is defying traditional categories. \u201cI like the idea of having an elegant attitude, the attitude of a heel, when something is actually a flat. I like creating a sensual attitude with something that isn\u2019t a heel. I like hybrids. I like a car shoe, but I don\u2019t want it to look like a car shoe at first sight.\u201d She expounds, philosopher-like, on how \u201cdesign must reflect the way we live, and so much has changed about the way we live, and the way we use things.\u201d Meaning? \u201cMeaning we might have, say, a car we don\u2019t actually have to drive anymore, so then what does that mean for the car shoe? A shoe can support a new way of being; a new use. It can put things in context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christen talks of how important \u2018specialness\u2019 is to her; how one of the reasons she started her own brand was to be able to \u201cwork on the craftsmanship and attention to detail that is being lost due to bigger quantities of shoes having to be produced more quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ambition is for her shoes to be \u201ca work of art,\u201d she says. Yet, of course, there is another dichotomy at play here of which she is well aware; that, indeed, is another motivation for her. \u201cA shoe can\u2019t just be an object of art. It has to be functional. It\u2019s an object of use. It\u2019s these parameters, these restrictions, that motivate me.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dior\u2019s design director of shoes, who launched her eponymous brand in 2024, reveals the maverick inspiration behind her extraordinary creations.\u00a0 Nina Christen is not only one of the hottest shoe designers of her generation \u2013 a woman who has challenged the aesthetic orthodoxy again and again, and bent it to her vision \u2013 she is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_preview_token":"","beyondwords_player_content":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_delete_content":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_status":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/facesjournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}