“We went on a quick trip to Peru last year, and I was really taken with the way it’s so natural there, so wild,” Louis Leeman said at London’s Café Royal, whose Pompadour room had been transformed into an exotic garden to show off the Dutch designer’s collection of tricked-up trainers, slippers, loafers and boat shoes.
The Peruvian influence was most clearly seen in a pair of laser-cut leather patchwork slippers that had been meticulously pieced together by hand in Italy. Luxury treatments such as gold metallic toecaps on high-top trainers, rubberized metal “bubbles” all over suede slippers, or chain edging on black skater shoes showed why Leeman has earned himself a cult following since he launched his label in 2012.