Happy day before Friday POU! Today we’re spotlighting the fabulous Kendall Reynolds of Kendall Miles Designs.
Combining avant-garde construction methods while maintaining a timeless, classic look, Kendall Reynolds is the must-know shoe designer behind Kendall Miles Designs. Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, she is currently a senior at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she started Kendall Miles Designs from her campus apartment. Talk about an entrepreneurial spirit!
Today Kendall is the CEO and design director of the luxury shoe brand. Reynolds, 22, is also the daughter of Loop Capital CEO James Reynolds and Sandy Reynolds, his wife and Loop Capital co-founder. Loop Capital currently holds the No. 2 spot on BE 100’s Investment Banks list.
Reynolds recalls how she spent a lot of time in her mom’s Hyde Park closet growing up, enchanted by her extensive collection of designer heels. In fact, after coming up with roughly 20 designs she was happy with, Reynolds showed them to her mom first, when she came to visit her at college.
“I want to start a shoe brand,” she recalls telling her mother. “I’ll be the designer, and I want you to help me build the business around it.
Kendall attended Ars Sutoria, a world-leading fashion school in Milano, Italy, where she learned the technical development methods for shoes, from buy viagra delhi design to construction. She is committed to maintaining true to couture standards, with all products hand-made in Italy and all designs hand sketched by Kendall herself.
Upon the time of her graduation, Reynolds realized that she was faced a tough choice: work as a designer at one of two major fashion houses that had expressed a fondness for her designs, or try to giving her own company a go, according to Crain’s Chicago Business.
The overall aesthetic of Kendall Miles Designs was inspired by the fashion of the 1940s and 1950s. To get on people’s radar as a sought-after luxury brand, Reynolds understood that her shoe designs needed to be super sexy, super high stilettos with special accouterments, such as ostrich feathers; perfectly dyed snakeskin; shiny, gold hardware; and so forth, Reynold’s told Crain’s Chicago Business. She conducted much of her research in vintage shops of both Paris and New York, in search of shoes with beautiful, super feminine, delicate details. Handcrafted in Florence, Italy, the collection was named after herself and her little brother, Miles.
Today, you can find Reynolds’ shoe collection online. Her spring/summer 2017 line, which uses an Egyptian motif through an assortment of semi-precious stones, is set to debut soon. This collection will also include a lower heel height and even a few flats.