“THE SHOE PRESENTATION”
…………………..Every Spring and Fall Season I along with Donna Karan, would make a shoe presentation at the office of our shoe licensee Schwartz & Benjamin. After working with Andrea Pfister developing the shoe collection it was the long wait……waiting for the shoes samples to arrive from Italy. Phillis Footer, second photo in from the right, and middle photo at the bottom, worked for S&B. She would work with Donna and myself and Andrea in Italy at the villa developing the shoes. Then it was her job to take what we had done to different factories and put the samples into work!!! A grueling job!! When the shoes finally arrived in NYC, after months, we would all meet at the office to go through the shoes and select what we liked…It was very exciting to see the fruition of all od our work…..Then we had a meeting with the sales staff and presented the collection. The photos are of us going through all of the samples and laying them out on the floor before the sales staff arrived…..This presentation went on each year, twice a year for all of the years I worked with AK……..After Donna left Phillis and I and Andrea continued to develop the shoe collections, and they were beautiful! The Anne Klein Couture Shoe Collection was a huge successful collection, and just grew and grew. When I left AK, Phillis continued the line but the new AK designers, which were many. They never devoted the time or creative energy that Donna and I did, and it was never the same……..The photo at the upper left is of Jac modeling the shoes, and myself presenting the shoe collect to the selling staff. This was in the late 80s, and Jac is wearing an outfit from the collection……Shortly after I left AK…. Andrea was also dismissed. The “new” designer of the AK collection wanted to go in a “different direction”………After so many successful years the AK company was headed on a downward spiral and the licenses paid the price due to the lack of “designer” direction.
