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"    Photo: Erin Donnelly   Last year was undoubtedly a very good year for Nicholas Kirkwood\u2014an Accessories Award win at the British Fashion Awards, the opening of his first U.S. store\u2014but the footwear designer has no intention of resting anytime soon.  The Fall 2013 London Collections: Men shows today marked the debut of Kirkwood&amp;#039;s first men&amp;#039;s shoe collection with a presentation staged at The Hospital Club. Though his name is synonymous with vertiginous heels in bold prints, as worn by super-fans like Sarah Jessica Parker, Kirkwood is hardly a novice when it comes to men&amp;#039;s design; he actually worked on men&amp;#039;s shoes before launching his eponymous label. Indeed, a look around the room revealed a high degree of craftsmanship and sophistication, punctuated, of course, by the Brit&amp;#039;s signature playful spirit.   The selection of boots, brogues, loafers, and sneakers ranged from the hip\u2014black patent leather peppered with studs\u2014to the classic\u2014smart two-tone, slip-on brown boots. And while your main man may not be down with the idea of his-and-hers shoes, Kirkwood&amp;#039;s reference to his women&amp;#039;s collection via quirky zigzags and metallic finishes make quite a compelling case for couples to get a bit matchy-matchy. Kirkwood fans will have even more to get excited about in the months to come, as ELLE.com&amp;#039;s chat with the designer reveals. ELLE: Was there a specific reason why you ended up showing your first men&amp;#039;s shoe collection now? Nicholas Kirkwood:  Originally I used to make my own men&amp;#039;s shoes before I launched my women&amp;#039;s line, and every season I would always go, &amp;quot;next season, next season.&amp;quot; It kind of got to the point when I gave up saying that. Now it feels like the time is right, and we have the retail and the kind of structure in place to be able to do that. It sort of seemed like the obvious next step. ELLE: What&amp;#039;s the challenge of designing men&amp;#039;s shoes as opposed to women&amp;#039;s? NK: It needs to be a sort of classic men&amp;#039;s shoe. I can&amp;#039;t completely go off on a wild tangent like I can with a woman&amp;#039;s shoe. It&amp;#039;s about reinterpreting some of the classics, like the brogue, in my style and taking some of the elements from the women&amp;#039;s line and incorporating it. There are some techniques and materials that I brought from the women&amp;#039;s [line] and put them into the men&amp;#039;s, but I still very much tried to make the men&amp;#039;s collection very masculine. They&amp;#039;re not necessarily dandy shoes. ELLE: You have such a loyal celebrity following with your women&amp;#039;s line. What male celebrity would you like to see wearing this men&amp;#039;s collection? NK: I quite like Jamie Hince. He&amp;#039;d be good. ELLE: You collaborate with a lot of womenswear designers. Are you open to working with men&amp;#039;s designers now? NK: Yeah, absolutely. I didn&amp;#039;t want to do it this season, because I was just kind of getting things together, but for next season I&amp;#039;m absolutely going to be working on men&amp;#039;s shows. I&amp;#039;m going to aim to do about three of them\u2014probably just London designers. ELLE: What are your next plans for expansion? NK: Bags are the next obvious step, as long as I can get it all together and try to do it for this summer coming up. As I&amp;#039;ve done with the men&amp;#039;s, I can really sort of reinterpret the ethos of the brand and how it&amp;#039;s going to look for a bag. It&amp;#039;s going to be quite exciting. And it won&amp;#039;t be a huge collection; it&amp;#039;ll be select styles. ELLE: How do you feel about your prot\u00E9g\u00E9, Sophia Webster, getting NEWGEN sponsorship this season? NK: I think it&amp;#039;s fantastic. I was really excited for her. I think that certainly now in London there&amp;#039;s becoming more and more focus on accessories, and I really think it&amp;#039;s going to be huge.  Photo: Erin Donnelly  Photo: Erin Donnelly  Photo: Erin Donnelly  Photo: Erin Donnelly "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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