the designer
The designer’s Love affair with fashion began at an early age, growing up in a suburb outside Chicago where he spent hours as a boy gazing at his mother’s impeccable wardrobe. That early aesthetic flair was developed at Southern Illinois University where he studied art and architecture, and eventually led him to New York where he studied clothing design at FIT. Fight after graduating, he hopped on a plane and began a fruitful modeling career on the catwalk of Europe, but all the while, he was filling to margins of his notebooks with doodles of four inch stilettos a clear indication of his career to come.
In 1996, Atwood became the first American to be hired by Gianni Versace in Milan. Starting with designing the company’s Versus line, he was soon promoted to chief designer for women’s accessories, where he mastered the intricacies of shoes design and high quality production and succeeded in creating an indelible brand identity for the accessories division.
In 2001, Atwood finally took the plunge and created his own label dedicated to stop-and-stare, drop-dead-gorgeous shoes made from the best manufacturers in Italy.
Not surprisingly, Brian Atwood shoes have become a hit with fashion editors and top boutiques around the world. In 2003, the designer’s talent was recognized by the CFDA, who awarded him the Swarovski’s Perry Ellis Award for Accessory Design.

Atwood, clearly an ally for all females, is singularly devoted to making women’s bottom halves look long, lean and fabulously sexy – and he does all that without killing their feet. His wicked stilettos, filled with detail and unusual contrasts, are expertly constructed using only the finest luxury materials. But even more irresistible is what he calls “The Cinderella Factor” – the instantaneous transformation that occurs on a woman’s face as her foot slides into the magical shoe.