With love, from the Queen of the Curve

Late last month, British luxury shoe and accessories brand, Charlotte Olympia, in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Design, unveiled two limited-edition pieces—a shoe and a clutch—at Christie’s in London. The translation from architecture to fashion is quite seductive, but not unexpected, since it’s from the design studio of the late British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, whose practice was built on bending the straight line into radical curves.

The partnership originated when Hadid and Charlotte Olympia Dellal, founder and creative director of Charlotte Olympia, met in 2015, and discussed a future collaboration. Hadid died in March 2016, but Dellal continued to work with Zaha Hadid Design, the studio set up by the late architect in 2006, separate from her architectural practice, Zaha Hadid Architects.

The two limited-edition pieces are made of perspex, a kind of acrylic glass. The sculptural wedge platform shoe has its silhouette accentuated with rose gold, and a transparent clutch also has its fluid form subtly highlighted by rose-gold accents.

Hadid, better known for changing the skylines of cities, displayed a soft spot for fashion. In 2013, she designed the Nova shoe for United Nude, with 16.5cm, cantilevered heels in a chrome-plated form. In 2006, she designed the Icone handbag for Louis Vuitton that played with the distortion of the LV logo. And one of the most beautiful reinventions of Bulgari’s original B.Zero1—a ring inspired by the architecture of the Colosseum that the Roman atelier first launched in 2000—came from Hadid. Her iteration, named B.Zero1 Design Legend, is a luxurious spiral of gold.

The addition of the Charlotte Olympia pieces to this increasing collection of fashion and jewellery design is keeping the architect’s legacy alive.

Available at Charlotte Olympia retail stores or at www.charlotteolympia.com, £1,600 (around Rs1 lakh) for the shoes and £2,600 for the clutch bag.