Playful, jaunty, full of life, colourful. Those are the shoes that Carla Foca, born in Messina but Milanese by choice, has been creating since 2010. A Sicilian feeling stems from the exuberant palette: the blue of the sea, the yellow of the lemons, the red inside of the watermelons. From the first clay maquettes to the unique and fanciful objects in which art meets fashion (and viceversa), Carla Foca’s production is refined and uses the highest quality leather.

Carla Foca observes nature’s richness with simplicity: «the flora, the fauna inspire me endlessly. I stare for hours at a watermelon, the representation of a penguin or a fish. Then, I redraw them in the smallest detail. Once completed, my shoes do not only imitate the animal or the fruit; they turn into it, absorbing their essence. The profile of the elegant décolleté Penguin with a Swarovski button reveals the silhouette of the animal, which seems to have entered the shoe, and its shape. Even the 17 hand-painted fishes for the marine 2021 Spring/Summer collection Fish Shoes, could have easily donated their colours to the models: there is the surgeonfish shoe, the trumpet fish, the freshwater rainbow, the mandarin, the rainbow wrasse, the yellowfin surgeonfish.... There are also shoes to eat "with your eyes", such as the watermelon décolté and the rose shoe. In addition to footwear, Carla Foca prints the elegant silhouettes of the mannequins on t-shirts. She first designed them as a 17 year-old student at the Accademia del Disegno: these beautiful pieces are taking their leave for the new Summer 2022 collection that will have the zodiac as its main theme. Shoes have always spoken a lot to those wearing them as symbols of power, elegance, even employed to define a role. For Carla women's shoes are essential signs of womanhood, and the best extension of the female body. According to her, they even embody a vision of the world. But in the end "Who is Carla Foca?" She answers "An artist, a stylist, I don't know. I refrain from labels. Maybe both, as someone once told me."