FASHION PROFILE: JEROME C ROUSSEAU

CHECK OUT THIS COOL ARTICLE ON AN ART HOUSE FUNKY DESIGNER. MY WORDS, NOT HIS. LOL. ENJOY

Electro Dash: Jerome Chouinard-Rousseau’s Shoes Are Getting Feet Tapping

Jerome Chouinard-Rousseau’s parrot, Malibu, is making much too much noise. “She doesn’t always like to share the attention,” the 31-year-old designer says, coaxing the pretty bird out of her cage. Better to take her next door, to his boyfriend’s apartment, it’s decided, so that we can talk uninterrupted about Chouinard-Rousseau’s breakthrough shoe collection, which is characterized by wonderfully original urban-Victorian ankle boots and other eye-catching alternatives to the functional pump and flat. As beautiful as Malibu is, we don’t want her distracting us from the shoes.

Born in Québec and trained in London, Chouinard-Rousseau now lives and works out of a sunny apartment/studio in L.A.’s Beachwood Canyon. Before launching his own line, he worked for labels like Isabelle Fiore and Matthew Williamson. He also played keyboard in an electro-pop band called “Riviera F,” but that was just a hobby. (“We were slightly over-the-top, very aloof, very much about the performance,” he tells me shyly.) Shoes are, and have always been, Chouinard-Rousseau’s true love. “It’s hard to explain what they do, but it’s very emotional,” he says. “For me, I like them dead simple but distinctive. It’s too easy to do something big and busy.”

Fall is Chouinard-Rousseau’s third collection, and his strongest yet. “I had two muses: Kate Bush and this French band from the late ‘70s/early ‘80s called Elli & Jacno,” he explains. “The whole collection is that—glam, disco, very musical.” Take, for example, the Uno heel, which came down the Peter Pilotto runway in London last February. An elegant round-toe boot with U-shaped cutouts around the ankles, “it makes the feet look very precious,” Chouinard-Rousseau says. It also makes the feet look slender and enticing. Same goes for the Andromeda—a front-zip peep-toe suede ankle boot with a patent leather heel that I had the pleasure of wearing to the Met Costume Institute Gala recently (it really was a pleasure; they are remarkably comfortable). “I think when I started, everything was very ‘60s—sharp, modern,” he says. “As the collection has grown, it’s relaxed a little. There’s a lot of ‘70s luxe craftsmanship, a lot of soft leather.”

Jerome C. Rousseau shoes will be sold at Barneys and Net-a-porter this fall. Look for them also in Terry Gilliam’s new film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which screens at Cannes this week. It seems inevitable that they’ll soon be stars.

www.jeromecrousseau.com