A Hidden Genius of the Shoe World Strikes Out on Her Own
Nina Christen has created sought-after shoes for everyone from LOEWE to Bottega Veneta to The Row. And now she’s bringing her intellectual approach to design to her own label, CHRISTEN.
When she was just 10 years old, Nina Christen taught herself how to make clothes using “stuff that was around,” like plastic bags from her grandmother’s house and discarded curtains. Taking fashion inspiration from things she found in her Swiss surroundings—even items that might be considered junk to most—came naturally, and has stuck with her throughout her career, which has included stints at The Row, Saint Laurent, CELINE, Bottega Veneta, and LOEWE.
“I love to think about the immediate environment, things that you sort of deprive of their use to become purely aesthetic features,” she explains of her creative process. During her time at LOEWE under Jonathan Anderson, this design philosophy came through in a particularly viral and unusual pair of shoes: pumps covered in deflated rubber balloons, creating a fringe effect, from the Spring/Summer 2023 collection.While you might not know Christen by name, you surely know her designs. Her body of work boasts hit after hit, but the first piece she remembers really exploding came when she was at Bottega Veneta under Daniel Lee: the Lido sandal, a mule with a woven, blown-up strap. “The scale of the success was bigger than at any other place I’d worked before,” she recalls. “That was amazing, especially with things that people did not believe in at first. Like, ‘This shoe is very extreme, it might not be very successful.’ Then the opposite happened. That was so reassuring for my work because I knew that I can actually trust myself.”Now, she’s taking that well-earned confidence and striking out on her own. With her eponymous label CHRISTEN, a tightly edited range of high-heeled sandal, boot, mule, and tabi styles, she’s showing the world a vision that’s entirely her own. “The shoes are 100% the essence of what I wanted to embody with my aesthetic,” she says, noting that she took a lot of time to research and conceptualize what a gradually scalable collection could look like before development began.Her expertise in the technical aspects of shoe design combined with her exquisite taste (she sees her high heels as “objects”) sound like an easy sell for luxury shoppers, but she looked outside of the industry to find a business partner, who comes from the tech world. “I wanted to work with people who have nothing to do with fashion and just create something new.”Not wanting to be boxed-in—and the desire to learn as much as she can, about as many topics as she can—also comes back to the creative practice she’s honed since childhood. “I’m interested in science, I’m interested in trees, I’m interested in philosophy. The things that inspire me the most are not really aesthetic. I’m just a nerd about so many things!”
You taught yourself how to sew and apprenticed for a tailor as a teenager. How did you end up in shoe design?What was the most important thing you took away from your time working for a big fashion house or conglomerate?Is there a delicate balance working at a big brand between creativity and commerciality in the designs?
I was working for a while, and at a café, etc. I knew I wanted to study fashion, but not in Switzerland. I applied to schools and then I went to Paris and started studying; I did the master’s in fashion design. I have a very specific vision about clothing, which is very classic and very simple. It’s all about the pattern and the fabric, not necessarily about innovation in a creative way. I don’t like crazy clothes. I really like classic things. I thought, ‘Oh, all these brands are doing all this crazy stuff, I won’t ever be able to work for them because that’s just not what I like.’ But in shoes, I could wear everything. I could appreciate even things that I don’t like, you know? Brands that I don’t like, I would still appreciate a shoe. In my brain I was like, with shoes I’m able to do all sorts of things. It felt like an escape from my rigid aesthetic vision regarding the garments.Never stop producing. My output was enormous. I was just like, I want to make cool stuff, and I did one shoe after the other, after the other. I’m able to produce big quantities of ideas, and I like that. Some of them might not be the best idea, but it’s really important to just let yourself produce and learn from the mistakes. If you have an environment that supports that, and has the budget to do that, it’s very important that you’re not restricted. I was not restricted at all, and it was really like, wow, I can do everything I want!I was always in charge of the creative part. It just always fell into my hands somehow, because that’s the most challenging part with the most suffering involved, and many people didn’t really want to be involved in that. The stuff that I did was not necessarily commercial enough because I wanted to make new things. I always had this expectation for myself—I didn’t allow myself to do normal things. [Being] commercial is very important, but I feel like when you’re starting out as a designer, it’s important to really push your creative boundaries.
Do you recall the first viral shoe you designed? And how did it feel for you to see it go crazy at retail and all over the internet?At LOEWE you designed plenty of shoes that were a little bit outrageous. Do you have any favorites, or ones that you were surprised to see blow up the way they did?How has it felt over the years to bring your big creative ideas to someone else’s brand?
It was definitely the Bottega Lido sandal. The scale of the success was just bigger than at any other place I’d worked before. That was amazing, especially with things that people did not believe in at first. Like, this shoe is very extreme, it might not be very successful, etc. Then the opposite happened. That was so reassuring for my work because I knew that I can actually trust myself.I guess the balloon pump is one of them. For me, that was a very simple gesture: Let’s take these balloons, put them on the shoe and see what happens. I saw it first with the silhouettes of the ready-to-wear, and this shoe really did something to the whole look. It was also the moment that I had started working there, and my first shoe collection for LOEWE was immediately recognized, like, wow, the shoes! That also made me very happy. There was also one with foam and rubber leaves and flowers. I love to play around with the machines at the factories. I went to the flower store and we used a 3D scanner to print them out in foam, and put them on the shoes.For me, that was not a problem because they were never entirely my personal taste 100%. I think one other beautiful aspect of the job as a designer is to work with other creative people, and I really like to analyze other people and their tastes. To me, it’s like doing something for someone else. It’s using your abilities and then tuning in to another sensitivity and I think that’s a very beautiful thing. In our digital age, what else remains but human connection? That’s something I love, when you then do something and you feel that this actually also corresponds to the other personality. I never really felt frustrated. I just always had in mind that at some point I have to do my own project.
I’d love to hear about your own personal tastes: Are there things that have consistently inspired you creatively from a young age?What’s your brand philosophy for CHRISTEN?Could you talk me through the range of styles you launched with in your first collection?
There are so many things that inspire me—the things that inspire me the most are not really aesthetic. It’s more like creative concepts. When I read about neurons and protons, I’m like, oh that’s wild! I don’t understand it, but I find it very inspiring. I think I’ve always noticed Prada from a very young age, even without knowing anything about fashion. Where I grew up I didn’t really have access to magazines, etc. I’m just a nerd about so many things!I just want to make the best products without compromises—without compromising on material, on technical aspects. That’s really the most important [thing] for me. Also the innovation part, but not necessarily in a crazy way; just to establish new technical standards and comfort standards. Also this philosophy has to be translated into retail, because to me, store concept was always part of the brand.I love high heels. Not necessarily wearing them a lot, but for me, they’re really like objects. I wanted to create the perfect high heel; I feel like I’m known for comfortable shoes, especially comfortable high heels. So I started developing this ergonomic footbed that really supports the arch and adds to the very interesting profile view of the shoe. I worked around this for like a year, then it’s also made in an ultralight material. The uppers are very simple, so I really just wanted to start out with the fewest straps possible to hold the foot. That was one aspect that I wanted to integrate in the collection, because that’s the most difficult thing to do: make a shoe without many components, but to have it fit perfectly. The styles that I created first are really a classic collection that I don’t ever want to change. They’re like the foundation of a house, but the beautiful thing with the shoe is that you can build so much on the same foundation.
There’s a pair of tabis in the collection, which have gotten a lot trendier over the last couple of years. What was your thought process like for including those?You want to create a long-standing luxury brand that you can scale. How do you plan to get there?There are a lot of brands out there and they’re all marketing to you constantly. Have you found it challenging to get the word out about having a new brand?What makes CHRISTEN different from other new luxury labels hitting the market right now?
I just wanted to create a tabi with a different technical construction than other brands do. They are made in this stretch leather which really feels more like a sock, and the fit is really perfect. I was like, the tabi shoe doesn’t really belong to any brand, it’s Japanese cultural heritage, let’s just let’s just do one. They’ve gotten a lot of attention, but for me it was more of a basic that I just wanted to have in my wardrobe.I’m working on ready-to-wear items, but I’m working on each category separately. I work with a jersey supplier in Japan and a denim supplier. I love a good pair of denim and a nice T-shirt, so those are really basics that I wanted to cover. Everything in the CHRISTEN campaign images are also CHRISTEN ready-to-wear pieces. I won’t launch ready-to-wear immediately, but I just want to do one piece after the other and then eventually create a collection. I feel like when you make big collections, the creativity or the attention to detail gets a bit lost. It’s important that each piece that I make for ready-to-wear I can then have it as a classic staple, because I love to buy the same T-shirt, like, five times.I didn’t really make a lot of effort around that; maybe that’s something that will prove opposite in the future. When you have a really good product, people eventually will discover it—I would like people to discover the product like that, and it just grows slowly, rather than marketing that creates that desire. I would like this desire to come from the people themselves, not necessarily from a marketing machine. But yeah, we’ll see how that goes.The suppliers I collaborate with, they only work with big luxury brands, not with small brands, so I can really offer exceptional quality, exceptional material. Also my expertise about everything. My experience in the sector really makes me offer one of the best fits, and that’s very technical. Beyond the aesthetics of a shoe, there’s so much that people don’t perceive. I just want to make a desirable product. Shoe-wise at the moment—there is space, let’s say.
