“I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot,” – Hollywood Legend Marilyn Monroe.
Footwear designer, Swati Mehrotra, may not have invented high heels, but her footwear designs are definitely high on style. Based out of Delhi, Swati retails under the label Swatimodo and customizes footwear to cater to her client’s tastes and design sensibilities.
“I dreamt of being a fashion designer right from my early teens,” she tells us. “I can’t say that I wanted to become a shoe designer in particular. Like every other creative person who enjoyed designing fashions, I wanted to design dresses right since my childhood,” says Swati. “At that time, I lived in Bareilly and only came to New Delhi after completing my higher secondary education,” she reveals.
It was around this time that Swati saw an advertisement in a newspaper about an entrance exam and a competition for shoe designing. “It was for the Footwear Design and Development Institute in Noida. And as fate would have it, I got selected,” she says.
The rest, as they say, is history!
In the years since then, Swati’s designs on shoes have embraced many themes ranging from animals and pets (she is an animal lover), to astro-zodiac signs (“my best selling collection,” she says) to her favourite icon, the Taj Mahal.
Swati uses any and every fabric to create the fashionable footwear. “Some of the more basic materials I use include leather, synthetics and cloth fabrics. But I’ve also customized footwear from an old pair of jeans and sarees and I have even used car tyres for soles,” she elaborates.
Her latest line for Summer 2011 is called the Seren Gypset 2011.
“Seren is a Welsh word which means star and this collection goes out to everyone who pursues a dream to shine as bright as a star,” says Swati.
As for the word Gypset, it’s a fusion of Gypsy and Jetset. “The gypsy is one inclined to a nomadic, unconventional way of life, one who travels for a living, never settling down in a specific place. Gypsies traditionally have very little money, which the Jetset cannot identify with. So, my ‘Gypset’ clients are the kind who dress in expensive bohemian clothing and who hop on planes that take them to exotic locales.”
This collection of footwear is defined by the use of bold colours, unconventional patterns, experimental heels, dramatic silhouettes and lots of wood. “My love for animal is also well seen in this pet range with detailing of parrots and butterflies,” confides the designer.
And finally, the coolest thing about Swati is that she trains inmates of Tihar Jail in the art of shoe-making, thus making them self reliant and urging people to accept them back in society.
Now that’s what we call putting your best foot forward!