Meet Stuart Weitzman’s new creative director Giovanni Morelli

Entering the gargantuan headquarters of Tapestry — parent company of Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman — in New York’s imposing Hudson Yards, a new glistening glass development as big as a village in the sky, the weight of responsibility of Stuart Weitzman’s new creative director, Giovanni Morelli, is omnipresent.

Morelli, an affable, handsome Italian who is easy to laugh, wears the pressure lightly — he arrived in New York one year ago with an unstoppable track record of creating best-selling handbags for some of the world’s biggest fashion houses. He was responsible for Marc Jacobs’ Stam bag, the Chloé Paddington and Loewe’s Hammock bag among others. In August 2016, Stuart Weitzman, the man himself, announced his successor after a half century long career in shoe design. Morelli’s mission? ‘To give a fashion point of view to this house.’

The 32-year-old shoe brand has been made famous over the years for its Nudist sandals and 50 /50 thigh-high boots — this year impressively celebrating its 25th anniversary — worn by the world’s most googled names, from Emily Ratajkowski and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to Cara Delevingne and Bella Hadid. You’ll have seen the black and white ad campaigns covering the side of buildings featuring Kate Moss and Gigi Hadid. Intentionally ‘unbranded’, Stuart Weitzman shoes have been the go-to for the safely style conscious, but oft sidestepped by the cutting-edge fashion crowd. That is until now: these accessories are about to get kudos in a new level.

Morelli is the newest in a raft of designer appointments made by big houses that are substituting star names with lesser-knowns — Alessandro Michele for Gucci sparked the trend, as did Saint Laurent’s rising star Anthony Vaccarello. Today, fashion is more data-driven than ever, with consumer and audience insights available to marketing and merchandise teams, but Morelli bats this away: ‘Intuition,’ he affirms.

‘First we decided what we wanted to do with the brand: become a destination point for women, real women,’ he says, impassioned. ‘So no matter how you dress you can find shoes in our brand.’ In 2017 Stuart Weitzman netted £265 million in sales, an 8 per cent increase on the previous year.

We meet in Morelli’s open-plan design studio on the umpteenth floor. Dramatic views of the Hudson River serve as a backdrop. He’s dressed in a simple navy crew neck T-shirt and black jeans — only a peak of a Chrome Hearts chain gives away a rebellious streak. Taped to the window overlooking the river are his inspiration pictures, pulled from books and Instagram: Lauren Hutton, Emmanuelle Alt, Beyoncé, Kate Moss. He is drawn to a healthy, American style of beauty, a fresh and athletic vision.

In February this year, he revealed his pre-fall 18 collection (in store in May) at New York’s hottest uptown venue, The Pool. He’s been furiously expanding into categories — boots, pumps, wedges. ‘We did a lot of pumps, starting from scratch — a straight heel, a curvy heel.’ And new flats. ‘Flats are not dead, but it isn’t about wearing ballerinas any more.’ His replacement? A reimagined Belgian structured slipper (you will want to wear this with cropped ankle jeans) called The Slipknot. There’s jewellery coming too; slices of expensive-looking coloured stone with gold hardware in a decadent 1970s mood. The quality is high — more than 95 per cent of the shoes are produced in Spain — and the price point fair: compared with many designer brands where shoes retail for around the £750 mark, Stuart Weitzman sells closer to £400 on average.

So what’s his recipe for creating iconic accessories? ‘I think the term iconic is a little pretentious,’ he begins. ‘The market will tell you if something is iconic or not. For Burberry it was commercial, so it was a moment with the logo and then it became giant. For Chloé, I wanted to do a sexy leather bag with no logo. At the time it was all about Fendi, Gucci, Dior — another logo moment. It was also crazy even to think a small ready-to-wear brand could become giant in terms of leather goods. And it happened. Also at the time I was working for Marc [Jacobs] and I was coming to New York, and we started to do this bag, but it was just an idea of a different way to do a cool bag. People were wearing jeans, flip-flops, vintage shirts and a $1,000 bag. It was changing.’

Today, consumer behavior is changing again and he believes the era of the It-bag is over. Right at the moment he’s been brought in to develop a bag line. ‘There has been an overdose of bags. Today, I don’t think the phenomenon of the It-bag is there any more,’ he confirms. ‘But there is still desire. I think after the time of “fashion, fashion, fashion” it became the time of Hermès and Chanel, for another kind of customer, or the same customer that wanted something new. Then that became suburban. But this [cycle] is fashion.’ What will this mean for the industry, where volume of production, profit margins and sales plans are reported on daily? ‘Right now I am in the mood to do something that has a longer life. I think it’s a kind of trap to have this creation, every season.’

Born in Cosenza (the ball of the foot in Italy’s boot), Morelli never intended to become a shoe designer. He studied fashion design at the Domus Academy in Milan, where he received his master’s. ‘I wanted to do ready-to-wear, this was my dream. Prada was the only brand I liked, so I kept calling and after some attempts Ms Prada told me, “Okay, you can work here.” When I arrived in Tuscany at the factory, [CEO and Miuccia Prada’s husband] Mr Bertelli told me I had to start with bags. I never even thought about it. And this was how I started. It was his decision not mine. And that’s when I fell in love with it.’

After his time at Prada, Morelli moved to Dolce & Gabbana where he grew the accessories division, including custom jewellery and scarves. Then came Burberry for five years; after the first three of which he started work for Chloé. Chloé lasted 15 years before Loewe, and then Stuart Weitzman called.

Morelli seems to inherently understand the balance of creativity and commerce required for a role such as his. ‘Fashion is hard. It’s complicated,’ he says, but his drive for creativity paired with commercial dexterity produces desirable products that you can actually wear, that function and that sell. ‘It’s a starting point,’ he smiles.