Designer puts best foot forward

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the luxury fashion marketplace, the world of suede pumps and calfskin flats is wide and fierce, but designer Sarah Flint seems to have cracked the code, at just 28 years old. Flint’s eponymous shoe line graces the racks at Barneys New York and the feet of fashion-forward celebs such as Amal Clooney and Jessica Alba.

The heel heights she offers are modest (none over 100 millimeters, Flint says). Her prices? They start at $595 for the best-selling “Emma” pump (the first Sarah Flint shoe Clooney wore, which led to her purchasing most of the line afterward, Flint says) and rise to $1,800 for a tall boot.

Flint, a Massachusetts native and now New Yorker, visited Charlotte on Friday for a trunk show at Coplon’s women’s clothing boutique in Phillips Place and explained what women who wear her shoes get for the price.

Comfort, she says, is key to her brand. Every shoe sports memory foam cushioning, as well as a rubber island on the sole that prevents slipping and adds comfort, she says.

“We set ourselves apart by making women shoes that they actually want to wear,” she says.

She also adds unique styling touches like snakeskin or hand-painted leather along the vamp, or the top of the shoe, to give women a nicer view while looking down at their feet.

“Male designers don’t realize that we don’t look at our feet from the side,” she says.

Flint admits that getting Clooney hooked on her shoes was a lucky break (someone who dresses Clooney found Flint’s shoes and liked them so much she offered a pair to Clooney), but her roots go deep in the fashion world, despite her youth.

Always a lover of fashion, she began working at a high-end women’s boutique near her home in the Boston area at age 14, she says, and eventually ended up in a buyer’s role. She attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, then moved to Italy to study footwear production.