Nina Divito's flamboyant paintings of high heels are so successful she has decided to put her shoe design business on hold, writes Deirdre McQuillan.
In Nina Divito's studio in Cabinteely, Dublin 18, playful, colourful paintings of shoes adorn the bright white walls, each one depicting very erotic high heels, some with bows and roses, others studded with crystals and swirling ribbon.
It comes as no surprise that her college dissertation was The Sexual Sole of the Shoe because, "I've always found the links in the brain between sex and the foot fascinating - through history women have done crazy things to their feet," she says.
Having left school in 1999, Divito completed a degree in model-making at the Arts Institute in Bournemouth, and followed it with a footwear diploma design course at Cordwainers College in London. She put her plans to set up her own footwear label on hold after a small exhibition of her shoe paintings in Dublin in May was such a sell-out success that she has been working to commission ever since.
She has discovered the freedom of painting rather than making shoes. "Because I was not trained as an artist, my approach is more relaxed, and I think that is why my paintings work. When you design a shoe, and you know you have to make it, you have so many things to take into account. With this there is no restriction, it is completely 100 per cent imagination, and I can really push design ideas."
Divito is of Italian ancestry - her great grandfather was from Montecassini - and she has always loved art, but was more interested in sculpture. Her three-year degree course in the UK was "amazing", she recalls, learning technical skills such as sculpting, casting and architecture, "and that was where I got into shoes and started to work in leather". At Cordwainers, she learnt how to make shoes the traditional way, by hand. While still at college, she landed a job at home in the Easter holidays making bags and leather harnesses for the movie King Arthur.
Her first break came when one of her designs won an Elle magazine competition judged by shoe designer Olivia Morris. "I won the prize for best illustration, and Olivia contacted me and I went to work for her last September for five months. It seriously opened my eyes to the shoe business and I learnt that it is 90 per cent business and 10 per cent design. Olivia's designs were all done at night and all day she ran the business." Travelling to Bologna with Morris, Divito gained first-hand knowledge of the process, from pattern to creation.
In the meantime, Divito kept up her drawings in her sketchbook and one day somebody said "why don't you sell them?" Initially she starting giving them to family and friends, but after the exhibition in Dublin, everything just took off and she hasn't stopped working since. "I was so shocked at its success. I got 30 e-mails wanting to commission more work from me from people who had seen the exhibition."
Her paintings are free-style, flamboyant, colourful and easily accessible. "The more I have been painting, the more I enjoy playing around with the risqué," she says as we view one painting depicting the rear view of a pair of legs in seamed stockings ascending a staircase in killer stilettos. "I think shoes are fun, and even people who aren't interested in shoes see them as fun."
Last season, the Paris shows were notable for daring, often dangerous footwear. At Chloe, heels were inverted triangles, while at YSL it was all the models could do to keep on their toes, so murderously difficult was the footwear. "I like that idea of extreme elegance," Divito says with a smile, showing me some of her prototypes based on old version of the Cinderella story in black snakeskin and crystal. "I like the idea of the dark undertones." Her favourite shoe designers are people such as Bruno Frisoni of Vivier, who push the boundaries.
Dressed in a grey sweater and black Olivia Morris suede boots, Divito admits that she lives in Converse runners when she is at work and is covered in paint. But she also loves dressing up to go out and is pained by badly made shoes.
Though she is reaping the financial rewards of her sudden success, her next step would ideally be to show her work in Paris and New York. "The more time I spend doing this, the more I find it an amazing window to push the design rather than the business side," she says.